2013 Puttin' Up Thread

[CountryBoy19]

I'm so jealous of everybody getting stuff already. I was so late getting the garden planted this year. Everything is doing great, but just not ready yet.

If we were closer I'd offer you some green (and purple) beans... went out last night and found enough beans to can another 5 quarts... probably will be just as many tonight... I'm pretty confident I'm going to get sick of green beans pretty quickly...

For those that don't know, bush beans produce a lot of beans quick. Pole beans produce a lot of beans all season long... I did pole beans for the first time this year and I can say they produce a TON more beans than bush beans do...

 

[bwframe]

I made a couple batches of strawberry/rhubarb preserves.
I'm hoping for enough jalapenos to make jelly to go along with pickling and freezing as many as possible. The jap plants are fighting some kinda blight or virus this year, the year "some genius" decided to cut back on the number of plants in the garden.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Another 7 qts of beans in the canner rights now. At this rate I'm going to run out of jars before tomato season even gets here. My toms still haven't started to turn. Everything seems to be bucking blight issues well so far except potatoes. Tomatoes are in a new area this year so there should be very little blight fungus in the soil; that may be why I'm having great tomatoes... plants are 6 feet tall and loaded with tomatoes, just not ripe ones...

 

[DeadeyeChrista'sdad]

Pepper butter, pepper jelly. Strawberry and black raspberry. Delicious.

 

[eldirector]

Pickles! All Kosher Dill. Threw some fresh Jalapeno in a few jars for "hot" pickles, and canned the rest of the peppers for later.
9 pints, 6 quarts, and a little jar of peppers. I may do another batch in a few weeks.

 

[CountryBoy19]

I'm going to bump this with a basil storage idea... and to get it back to the front so the "canning" threads will stop popping up every other day...

I love basil, dried and fresh, but fresh is the best. Unlike oregano (which gains potency when dried), basil loses flavor and potency when dried; the entire flavor profile radically changes. So I set out to figure out how to store basil without killing the flavor. As it turns out, google wins again. Freeze it. You can freeze it whole-leaf to preserve flavor but the color will turn a dark brown to almost black (same color as if you dried it). I have found that if I put it in a food processor with a bit of olive oil and chop it up fine, then freeze it will preserve color and flavor. The outer surface of the frozen mass will turn black but the color will be well preserved inside. TIP: after chopping and mixing with olive oil to get a somewhat chunky paste-like texture, spoon it into ice-cube trays to freeze. This will leave you with small blocks that can add to soups, dips, sauces, marinades etc. In MOST cases basil is used in addition to olive oil (at least in my house) so the small amount of olive oil with the basil won't hurt a thing...

 

[bwframe]

Blueberry/rhubarb preserves:

 

[bwframe]

Cracked open the first jar of bread and butter pickled jalapenos.
Mixed them up with a couple fresh Romas and poured them over cottage cheese. Very tasty:

 

[CountryBoy19]

Had an abundance of tomatoes but not enough to make any large batches of anything so I ended up making Pizza sauce... ended up with 6 pints after it reduced down a lot...

3rd batch of pepper jelly will be tonight... I have a great abundance of jalepenos... just can't get my red/yellow bell peppers to turn yet...

 

[Jason R. Bruce]

It's been a pretty easy year for the gardner! My 600 gallon rainwater retention system has hovered 50%-100% full all season and I've watered pretty heavy between rains. I've got a little more canning to do on tomatoes and a friend has a couple hundred ears of sweet corn due to ripen in a couple weeks that he can't use so I may put up a little more. I put out another batch of 36 peppers real late so there will be some Habanero jelly and Jalepeno rings to put away in a few weeks. Pumpkins are on schedule for October, 160 giant sunflowers should be done in a couple weeks.



Salsa (bought the limes)

Pickles (Brought the wife a hamburger from McDonalds and she pulled the pickles off immediately, as we put up 24 pints of homemade pickles!)

Blackberries & Raspberries Jelly & Preserves (We're up to 11gallon of black berries and 2 gallon of raspberries)

We worked hard a few evenings last week: about half our annual stash came through the kitchen in 3 days!

 

[gun_nut]

Canned 62 quarts of jalapeno sweet pickles. This year was a bumper year for cukes in the garden. I may till the rest under....

 

[88GT]

Did some pepper jelly for the first time last night. I don't know how I lived without the stuff before now.

Put 3 quart bags of green beans in the freezer about 5 minutes ago. That's from just 2 of the 3 beds, first picking. The 3rd bed was planted later and hasn't put any out yet. And there are probably still another 10 quarts worth of beans in various stages of development on the other two beds.

 

[CountryBoy19]

14 pints of pepper jelly completed last night... I could only fit 9 in my canner so I have 5 of them in my fridge.

 

[CountryBoy19]

5 qts of extra thick tomato sauce canned last night. I had 2 five-gallon buckets of tomatoes and couldn't decide what to make with them so I made sauce that can be made into whatever I want at a later date... Took several hours to reduce it down as thick as I like it but it came out really thick and sweet, just what I wanted...

 

[CountryBoy19]

Noticed my Yukon Gold potatoes were starting to go already. Probably just because they have really thin skin. So I decided to can them. I have enough YG taters for about 14 qts. So I started last night. Got nearly enough cleaned and cut last night when my day turned crappy... I slipped cutting a bad spot out and with the sharpest knife in my kitchen sliced my thumb to the bone. Once I got the bleeding stopped I pried it open and sure enough, it's deep. But its on the back side of my thumb and I don't think its a critical area, so I just butterflied it together, put a waterproof band-aid on it and kept at it. Got 7 qts done last night, I'll do the other 7 tonight along with another batch of tomatoe sauce.

 

[88GT]

Noticed my Yukon Gold potatoes were starting to go already. Probably just because they have really thin skin. So I decided to can them. I have enough YG taters for about 14 qts. So I started last night. Got nearly enough cleaned and cut last night when my day turned crappy... I slipped cutting a bad spot out and with the sharpest knife in my kitchen sliced my thumb to the bone. Once I got the bleeding stopped I pried it open and sure enough, it's deep. But its on the back side of my thumb and I don't think its a critical area, so I just butterflied it together, put a waterproof band-aid on it and kept at it. Got 7 qts done last night, I'll do the other 7 tonight along with another batch of tomatoe sauce.

Did ya get blood in the taters? :P I hope it heals quickly.

I got eight 8oz jars of strawberry jam canned. There are enough strawberries left for another batch. I have blackberries to jam and can. Green beans are giving me about a gallon every other day. Onions and sweet potatoes are bagged and ready to hang in storage in the garage.

I have jalapenos coming out of my ears. Now I'm pretty much waiting on the tomatoes to ripen so I can can the salsa, tomato sauce, and tomatoes. Will probably have to make more pepper jelly to use up the abundance of jalapenos and bell peppers.

Is there a way to preserve/store zuke and/or eggplant? Aside from zucchini bread. I was thinking of making ratatouille. Though I don't know that it can be canned. But it would still use them up.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Did ya get blood in the taters? :P I hope it heals quickly.

I got eight 8oz jars of strawberry jam canned. There are enough strawberries left for another batch. I have blackberries to jam and can. Green beans are giving me about a gallon every other day. Onions and sweet potatoes are bagged and ready to hang in storage in the garage.

I have jalapenos coming out of my ears. Now I'm pretty much waiting on the tomatoes to ripen so I can can the salsa, tomato sauce, and tomatoes. Will probably have to make more pepper jelly to use up the abundance of jalapenos and bell peppers.

Is there a way to preserve/store zuke and/or eggplant? Aside from zucchini bread. I was thinking of making ratatouille. Though I don't know that it can be canned. But it would still use them up.

No blood in the taters... as a matter of fact, the back-side of your thumb is relatively void of blood vessel (at least major ones) so the bleeding was very delayed. I was able to calmly set the knife down and grab a paper towel and there was still very little blood but the instant I tried to open it up and look how deep it filled enough I couldn't see how deep.

Regarding zuke/eggplant I don't know that there is much you can do that will preserve the texture (which is the problem). You can freeze it but AFAIK it will have a mushy texture when it comes out. For some dishes that will be ok, but for others mushy texture will kill it. If it's to the point that it's going to waste I would try to freeze some and just see how it works. If the zukes are going to go to waste otherwise then you have nothing to lose except your time cleaning/freezing them.

 

[hooky]

We cut zukes on a mandolin. Slice onions and jalapenos then put them up like you would bread and butter pickles. Sweet and hot, they're great on burgers, italian sausages and roast beef sandwiches.

Froze 12 quarts of corn tonight and that's probably the last of it. All together, we've done over 65 quarts of sweetcorn this summer.

 

[CountryBoy19]

4 more quarts of tomato sauce in the canner right now... I held one quart out because we're making homemade pizza and breadsticks tonight so I'll use fresh sauce... the freshest you can get... thats 9 qts of extra thick tom. sauce so far... the tomatoes are really sweet this year... makes for a super delicious sauce...

 

[88GT]

4 more quarts of tomato sauce in the canner right now... I held one quart out because we're making homemade pizza and breadsticks tonight so I'll use fresh sauce... the freshest you can get... thats 9 qts of extra thick tom. sauce so far... the tomatoes are really sweet this year... makes for a super delicious sauce...

I wish I could get my tomatoes to ripen. I probably have 150 tomatoes on 9 plants but every last one of them is still green. I keep hoping they'll pop soon and I'll be canning 24/7 to use them up before they go bad.

I got 3 pints of salsa done this morning. Recipe called for 5, but I would have had half a pint of salsa and a bunch of liquid. Yuck. So 3 it is. Still haven't got to the rest of the strawberries or blackberries. That's tonight. Hoping they're still good.