Moolie - Happy Thanksgiving :)

moolie

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Been canning up a storm lately, hit the Farmer's Market early yesterday morning and picked up 10 lbs of pickling cukes, a big bunch of fresh dill, and 60 lbs of peaches...

pickles before...
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fresh dill!
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7 quarts Dill Pickles
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old short square pint "Best Wide-Mouth" jar, one of 5 pints of Bread & Butter Pickles
pickles2012-5.jpg



Peaches before...
peached2012-1.jpg


Peaches after!
peached2012-2.jpg
 

moolie

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Thanks guys :hugs

Today I'm organizing it all onto my shelves to make the most sense and to leave some room for the things still left to can...

Going to have to wash a bunch more jars, some of the jars we got in the last load of second-hand jars have just been waiting out in the garage in the state in which they arrived (dusty manky spidery :sick) till they were needed and now we are getting to that point :rolleyes:
 

moolie

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So Tuesday I canned up 15 pints of ground bison, one didn't seal so we had tacos for dinner last night :)

Getting all the canning organized into storage has been fun this year, because I've picked up so many free/cheap used empty jars since last summer and therefore have more jars all around to store. Managing to fit it all in so far, but we still have pears and apples/applesauce to do, along with chutney, fruit cocktail, and a few more jams. And more convenience foods like soups, chili, stew, and this year I also plan some veggie mixes with potatoes for quick soups/stews.

Garden is coming to an end for the year. :(

Pulled all the carrots from one of the 4x4' garden beds. Got about 14 lbs and still have 3 more same-sized garden beds to harvest. That bed looks really bare now with all the beets, lettuce, and onions gone--only lonely tomato plants left. The tomatoes in the greenhouse put on huge growth this year, Rutgers and San Marzano both got to be 6' tall! I've been continually pruning the suckers off them and the fruit is ripening nicely now. Sweet bell peppers in the greenhouse are small, but tasty. Celery in the greenhouse did super, never figured out a "no rot" way to blanch them so we'll eat them green--mostly going to use them for cooking anyway, but got 2 very nice bunches (only two plants actually made it out of the seedling trays--planted 10-12 and put 3 outdoors, one didn't make it).

Beans and peas are done in the 4x8' beds so pulled those last week, corn is actually flowering/tasseling so we're very hopeful for something there! Parsnips look like they've done well but I'm not pulling any for at least another month, as frost gives them a lovely flavour. Turnips did well but were a bit elongated in shape rather than round for some reason. Sugar pumpkins are still small, as are the larger variety we planted for Jack-o-Lanterns, hope they do something before the frosts come in at night--this week our night time temps have dipped down to 5C/41F so we're getting close to frosty nights.

Cukes don't look like they're going to do much this year, Cardoons look lovely but we seeded them too late to see big growth like hubs was hoping for (a la The Victorian Kitchen Garden with Harry Dodson and Peter Thoday, see them all here ). We've actually been watching through the series again (we bought the DVD set from the UK a couple of years ago) and really enjoy it every time we watch it. They show some very old (and bad!) gardening techniques, just because they are re-visiting historic ways of dong things, but seeing the old varieties (especially the apples, we watched September last night) is lovely. One of the seed companies we deal with offers the NePlus Ultra that Peter's father had grown and that they grew for the series, so we plan to order some for next year :)
 

moolie

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So I was out watering the garden and picking a few green peppers and ripening tomatoes and I noticed that several of my parsnip tops were wilted and lying on the ground and that the soil was a bit fluffed up around the wilted plants. I gave a tug and the stem came out of the ground with no root--it had been chewed off. Started pulling the rest of the wilted tops, same story--no roots.

I had seen a small rodent a few days ago, and then saw him again last evening--turns out we have a prairie vole visiting our garden. He's managed to eat half my parsnips from the bottom up. I think he also ate a few beans before I pulled the plants out last week. So I pulled the rest of the parsnips and brought them in along with the peppers and tomatoes.

Little guy is adorable, but I hope he's not going to be trouble, and I really hope an entire family has not moved in. We're going to keep our eyes out for him and any other garden damage (still have tons of carrots out there but so far they haven't been touched, they are not near where I've seen the vole or where the parsnips were planted) and if he seems to be more of a fixture than a visitor (we live on the edge of the city next to vole habitat and we get all sorts of garden visitors) we'll trap him and relocate him far away.
 

TanksHill

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That's the same problem I have with gophers here. They come in from below and eat everything under ground. With my green beans they slowly pull the whole bush under. So frustrating.

I hope you can get rid of him soon.

gina
 

~gd

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Good luck with your voles! Skunks are their major preditor here and we usually see signs of the skunks rooting for them before we notice the damage to the root crops. After the skunks have worked a couple of nights the voles are gone.don't know if excaped or eaten but gone.
 
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