Moolie - Happy Thanksgiving :)

[moolie]

Can't have 'em in the city or we would

 

[so lucky]

Moolie, I've had good luck with putting crushed egg shells down around the plants. But they are kind of unsightly; even brown egg shells usually look lighter than the ground or mulch. Slugs were eating my hostas a couple of years ago, and the egg shells stopped them cold.

 

[moolie]

Thanks so lucky, I will try eggshells as well!

The dish of cheap beer took out several the first night, so that obviously worked, and we also put down a few bits of wood and have been picking the slugs off first thing in the morning. Seems to be working, I'm not seeing much new damage to the plants they've been attacking so we may have turned the tide.

The weather has changed, rain has stopped and we've had a couple days of hot blue sky sunshine. We had rain for 4 or 5 days last week that morphed into humid 30C heat on Saturday and today is supposed to be 35C. I know that doesn't sound hot to those of you who are dealing with prolonged heat and drought, but we just don't get that high very often--mid to high 20s is good summer heat around here.

Today I'm starting in on canning the 100 lbs of gorgeous hothouse roma tomatoes that we picked up at the end of day at the Farmer's Market, hope I can get a good pile of them out of the way before it heats up too much!

Planning on more tomato sauce, salsa, and chili sauce Planning on eating a few fresh as well

 

[Dawn419]

Sorry to hear that you are getting some of the heat, too! I was rooting for you to have the perfect garden season since so many of us aren't getting it!

 

[moolie]

Sorry to hear that you are getting some of the heat, too! I was rooting for you to have the perfect garden season since so many of us aren't getting it!

Thanks Dawn! It's actually not been too bad, 3 days of heat with hot nights, but last night it cooled down a bit and this morning they are calling for a possible thunderstorm later this afternoon or evening. Definitely not drought conditions or anything, we're just not used to it being quite that hot around here--especially heat at night

I had to water the garden and greenhouse yesterday morning, but that's it so far--we had several days of rain before the heat hit.

Got almost half the tomatoes canned up as sauce yesterday, 15 quarts! I have some work to do for clients today, but hopefully I can tackle the rest of the tomatoes between today and tomorrow.

 

[TanksHill]

Beautiful pics Moolie!!!

Is there such thing as tomato envy?? I need to find some tomato seconds. My garden tomatoes are a flop this year.

g

 

[Living the Simple Life]

Moolie:

Would you tell me how you can your ground meat? We were the recipients of 50# of ground beef which I would like to can, I just seem to find a lot of conflicting information. I know that you can meat on a regular basis and wondered if you would give a quick rundown on the steps. I appreciate any information you can share. Thanks!

 

[moolie]

Beautiful pics Moolie!!!

Is there such thing as tomato envy?? I need to find some tomato seconds. My garden tomatoes are a flop this year.

g

Aw, thanks Gina! Mine are still green and small--the ones I've been canning are from the Farmer's Market. I'm lucky to get any out of the garden this year as well, we had a blight scare a while back and had to toss all of our cherry tomato plants

 

[moolie]

Moolie:

Would you tell me how you can your ground meat? We were the recipients of 50# of ground beef which I would like to can, I just seem to find a lot of conflicting information. I know that you can meat on a regular basis and wondered if you would give a quick rundown on the steps. I appreciate any information you can share. Thanks!

Super easy, but time consuming if you have a lot to can

I brown my ground meat in batches, then rinse it under HOT water to wash off all the fat, if I have a lot I just keep in warm in a large pan in the oven set to 200F while I'm browning the rest, then pack it into pint jars, fill with boiling water leaving 1" headspace, and process 75 minutes (for pints, quarts are 90 minutes) at whatever pressure is called for by your altitude--most common is 10 lbs, I need 12 lbs for my higher altitude.

If you want more flavour you can use bouillon or stock in place of the water, but we don't find any lack of taste just using boiling water.

When I cook with it, if I don't need the extra water in the recipe I'm making I pour the water out of the jar first and save it for home made soups--gives a nice beefy flavour to soups.

 

[moolie]

Finally a moment to post some photos:

100 lbs of tomatoes:

15 quarts of tomato sauce from Monday:

Yesterday I got 10 pints of Spaghetti Sauce with Meat pressure canned

and 8 pints of salsa, still have about 25 lbs of tomatoes left to process today

And I was out in the garden earlier and harvested our first peas of the season they are in my tummy now!