Thanksgiving Week Stock Up!

Things you should take advantage of for your food storage this week since they're on sale for the holiday:

• Pumpkins--canned or fresh


• Sweet potatoes/Yams--fresh from the farmer stand if possible for the root cellar, or canned


• Potatoes--fresh from the farmer stand if possible for the root cellar


• Turkey--grab extras if you have room in your freezer, or if you have a pressure canner


• Baking supplies--flour, sugar, chocolate, etc


• Cranberries--fresh to dry them for trail mixes, to throw in salads, and for baked goodies


• Other root veggies like parnsips, turnips, rutabagas etc--fresh from the farmer stand if possible

So if you're just learning what to do with some of these and want to put them in your food storage, then hurry and gather up some recipes online to try out, because heaven forbid we don't want any of you to get bored by eating it the same ol' way each time.

The Root Cellar

{via Mary Jane's Farm}

I have grown up my whole life knowing that I should have a year's supply of food because that's what my church encourages. But I like to eat naturally and for years the basics of food storage stumped me on how to store natural foods. I just kept envisioning shelves lined with green jello and processed junk which I knew I didn't want.

So about four years ago I ran across Root Cellaring and a lightbulb went off! I didn't realize you could store fresh food this way. I mean, it made sense, how else did people eat for centuries during the long hard winter months? I just never thought about it before!

You can store whole grains, beans, rice and even fresh vegetables in a root cellar and eat a natural healthy diet! It is soo cool!

How Soon I Forget

I know I officially declared my canning season over with the last grape juice fiasco, but I looked out my window this weekend and noticed all the leaves had fallen off the grapevine but there were still lots of grape clusters hanging on.

So I trudged out and lo and behold, they were still good grapes! So I picked a box, brought them in and canned more juice!

This time everthing went ok {mostly}--no burnt pan or burnt stove top. This time only a burnt finger which I iced for six hours before going to bed then put a frozen gel pack wrapped around it while I slept and worried if I was going to wake up to a frostbitten finger.

What was I thinking??? Did I mention how awesome I am at canning? Oh how soon I forget!

Food Storage Design

Growing up, my mother-in-law tells about her single, widowed mom who had a goal every year to can at least 200 bottles of each crop she had access to. And she knew if she had 200 bottles of peaches, 200 bottles of applesauce and so on, that she would have enough to feed her family through the winter.

That's a lot of bottles! I don't even think I have 200 bottles period! And that would be for only one of my crops and there is definately more than one crop! I don't even think I have shelf space or room for 200+ bottles. At least not currently. That's where I really need to figure out and plan for shelves and space to put them all.

In this NYTimes piece, Elizabeth Cromley, a professor of architectural history at Northeastern University, said that at one time, “just about every house had special facilities for preserving food.”

"She said that understanding food preservation is not a frivolous pursuit. More than 400 books instructed 19th-century Americans on how to plan a functional house, with a practical larder, basement and outbuildings."

Wow! That's a lot of books on it! Where can I find some of these? They might be really helpful as I try to figure out the design of my food storage.

Apple Storage

I mentioned the apple rack my hubby said he could help me build a while ago but realized I never showed it to you. So voila! Here it is!

{via Country Living UK, Nov 2003}

You can purchase an apple rack like that at R. K. Alliston from the UK but hubby says if you're handy it really doesn't look that hard to build.

Or this Gorm clip-on basket {only $4!} could also work in some instances.

Apples need to be stored in shallow layers so that they don't bruise each other plus it makes it easier to check on them this way. That's why I like the above two options, but half bushel baskets and slatted crates work well too.

They like nice cold temperatures, as low as 32 degrees, but can also be kept a little warmer, they just won't last quite as long. So depending on the temperature they're kept at you could possibly have fresh apples clear til spring. Wouldn't that be lovely?

But if they become softer than you'd like for fresh eating you can always serve them as baked apples or applesauce. Mmmm!

Aaahhh! Autumn!

I did end up taking a vacation. And it was refreshing. But now I need to get back into the swing of things. Just because we are getting deeper into autumn doesn't mean that gardening and preserving is over yet.

I still have beds to clean out, leaves to rake, and hopefully I can still get my fruit trees in, then I still have shelves to build in the root cellar and containers to get for some of my food. Then comes the planning for next year and the managing of this years food.

But the brisk autumn air feels exhilirating so I don't mind squirreling around, cleaning and cozying up the place.

Independence Days: End of Season Wrap Up

Sometimes I wonder if I'm really cut out for this. My husband keeps telling me for all my time and effort {and stress} that it would just be easier to go buy the food from the grocery store. But it really makes me sad to see fruit trees go unpicked, or garden produce going to waste. Especially since Mother Earth is so generous.

But then I take a good hard look at myself and I've let produce go to waste before I could get it preserved somehow, and I've burnt the lid of the dehydrator {long story, don't ask!}, and I've let the water burn out of the juicer not once but three times, ruined the pan and have probably poisoned the juice with burnt pan chemicals that will poison my family with botulism or something worse! {I should probably throw those bottles down the drain!}

The kitchen carnage of that poor ol' juice pan is what has me throwing in the towel of surrender this year. I'm officially declaring my canning season over!

But then I also realize it has been a HUGE experimental year filled with learning all sorts of new things.

I have finally figured out how to manage lots of hot bottles for the canner. I've learned that juicing is easy if you pay attention to the water level in the steamer section. Making sauces {like apple or pear sauce} is easy also. So is dehydration. I can handle those.

I've also learned that prep work is time consuming as is the actual processing time and that it requires my full attention. I can't be trying to do three or four things at once which ends up ruining a perfectly good juicer pan. I've also learned that if I'm not careful it can overtake my life while other important things are ignored or forgotten.

I've learned a lot about gardening too. I learned a ton about my property and its quirks and where the sun hits. I've learned about soils, compost and pruning.

So in the end, I'm grateful for the Independence Days challenge, it taught me a lot, but I did have a lot of troubles along the way. Someone please tell me it will get easier someday and that all my problems will be but distant memories come next year when we're ready to try this again!

And now, I need a good vacation!

Independence Days: Snowfall Edition

Yes, the snow really did fall this weekend. Good thing I got the tomatoes in. There is still a lot to be done around here though so it's also a good thing the weather is supposed to warm back up again into the 60's and 70's. Gotta love crazy transitional weather!

I've been busy dehydrating apples and banana chips but they're disappearing about as fast as I can make them. The toddler LOVES them! We've also been busy picking and making grape juice. Yum! Yum!

Still need to do:

• Get and plant new fruit trees {and decide final locations}
• Clean out the rest of the beds
• Fortify the raised planters so that dirt and water don't escape next year through the cracks
• Clean out cold storage room
• Put in new shelves for root cellar
• Get baskets or containers for root cellar and buckets for food storage
• Pick the rosehips and dry them for winter vitamin C drinks
• Order seeds for next year
• Figure out how to make my basement not smell like onions and potatoes from the root cellar

I'm sure there's more, but thats what I could think of for now!

End of Season

Snow flurries are in the forecast this weekend so I picked the remaining green tomatoes. Look how pretty they are! I was going to hang them up but then I read Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables by Mike and Nancy Bubel and it said they didn't need to be hung necessarily, so I just went ahead a picked a whole box.

We're working on getting our "root cellar" set up this weekend. I bought 100 pounds of potatoes, 50 pounds of onions and some pumpkins from my local farmer. Plus I have a bunch of apples that need a home down there too. It's very exciting!

More Ideas For the Fruit Trees

Well it's no secret that I love espaliered fruit trees.

Unfortunately, I don't think anything like this will work on my property either. What a shame!

Maybe I'll just have to plant a regular ol' peach tree in a regular ol' kind of spot. Nah, there's got to be some exciting landscaping I can do with it!

{top image via English Garden, 2003; bottom image via English Home, 2003}

Fruit Trees

I went to the nursery today to buy my peach tree. I was going to plant it where my other tree died. But while I was at the nursery I saw other fruit trees that I'd love to have too~~like an apricot and a plum! So then I started thinking about the restoration garden again and creating my own sort of courtyard with a bunch of fruit trees.

It was overcast today so I went out to try and get a better shot of the restoration garden without the shadows in the way. You can see the design a little better now.

Here is a picture of my house where I was thinking about creating a courtyard sort of effect to plant more fruit trees.


Problems I see are:

1. My space isn't as large as the restoration garden.
2. I would have to convince my neighbor to create a courtyard on their property too so that it would be balanced.
3. They just planted a tree, a nut tree of some sort, that I have a feeling will grow humungo.
4. There are tons of electrical wires that run to the house in this area.
5. I'm sure there are other things I'm not thinking about

So I don't really know if this is feasible but it would be fun if it were. Maybe I should just keep thinking of other places to plant my fruit trees. Which then made me think of some other fun ideas I've run across . . . .

. . . . so stay tuned for the next installment in my fruit tree dilemma!

Scones Are On!

I decided to pull out some of the cherries I dried this summer to make scones. And wouldn't you know it, the one piece I decide to photograph doesn't even show any of the cherries! Oops!

Cherry Scones

2 cups flour

1/4 cup packed browno sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup chilled butter, cut into small pieces

1/2 cup dried cherries (or other fruit)

1/2 cup milk

3 tbsp maple syrup

Preheat oven to 400. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl; cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add cherries; toss well. Combine milk and syrup; add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and need 4-5 times. Pat dough into 8 inch circle on coated baking sheet. Cut into wedges, cutting into but not all the way through the dough. Bake at 400 for 17 minutes. Serve warm. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

Enjoy!

Independence Days: What We've Been Up To

Lately I've been helping my brother get some of his food storage all set up. His is looking better than mine! They completely cleaned out their storage room just for food storage. My storage room has to share with other things still. But I'm proud of what they've gotten done in a short amount of time! Good job guys!

Meanwhile, over here I have been canning some peaches, apples and pears. I was going to pick grapes to make juice this weekend but it has been too rainy. So I guess I will get to that during the week instead.

I'm also getting ready to bring in the rest of the tomatoes. There are still tons of green ones but we're getting real close to our usual frost date so I need to get them taken care of soon. I've never brought tomatoes in before and I'm not real sure how to hang them up, so if anyone has ideas, hints or whatever, let me know!

I'm hoping to go pick up a peach tree from the nursery this week to plant now that the trees are going on clearance. I also need to prune my espaliers too {I think} but I need to research it a bit more. I don't want to prune them the wrong way and kill them off or something.

I'm pretty sure the Idaho potatoes are ready to pickup somewhere and I also saw the local onion farmers trucking off huge truckloads recently so I know it is time to get some for the root cellar.

Speaking of my root cellar, I found a cool apple rack in one of my old british decorating magazines {that I love to read whenever it rains for some reason} that my cute hubby said he could help me build. I'm so excited! I will try to post pictures of that soon!

So that's what has been going on over here!

Garden Goodness

I've decided it is helpful

{and cute at the same time}

to pick produce with a basket.

A Restoration Garden

Look what I found driving down the street the other day!

A beautifully thought out fruit tree arrangement on a historical restoration project!

Love the symmetry and the pathways.

Gave me an idea for a similar idea at my house in the side yard by the wrap around porch. It could make such a delightful courtyard sort of effect between our two houses. Will have to work around the neighbors nut tree they just planted {not sure how big it will get}. I wonder if I could get them on board, but if not, I could probably figure out how to make it work just on my own side {though I think it would look better if we both did it}.

Hmmm.... this could be do-able. I will have to think about it some more.