preserving the garden

As much as fresh garden veggies rock, having garden veggies throughout the year that you raised rocks more. And it keeps you from having to buy more veggies, which also rocks. This isn't a complete pictoral essay, but it's close enough. We've diversified a little in our preservation techniques, and so far, that has proven successful in terms of less wasted (ie, rotting) vegetables.

Here is a portion of my shredded zucchini. This is really only about 4 or 5 large zucchinis, but I have about 20 2-cup bags... ready to thaw and make zucchini bread with. I like convenience, and it doesn't get any better than custom-packaged garden veggies!

My corn never does well... I have no idea why. Maybe I plant to few plants? I've tried planting in rows and blocks, and neither seem to do well. Everybody can grow corn... except for me! Here are the first two ears of the year... believe it or not, their appearance is far superior to most of our other ears of corn in past years! These didn't get preserved... but went straight to the plate... yum!

Here's some more of that zucchini. Alpine bought a food dehydrator to try since we had so much zucchini, in the hopes that we would waste less with rot. He should have bought that dehydrator a long time ago... it's the best thing since sliced bread! We sliced the zucchini and gave it a very quick steam blanching...

...then placed the slices on the dehydrator trays, set the temp, and turned it on.

This particular model came with 4 trays, but can be expanded to 30 trays! It does really well... depending on how thick you slice it, the zucchini is fully dried in about 5 to 12 hours.

Alpine has helped me pick smaller cucmbers this year, but we've still got a lot of large ones. So far, I've canned 14 pints of dill pickles with the smaller ones. I need just a handful more to make some bread and butter pickles next. Then I'm going to try some Cinnamon Cucumber Pickles (yeah, yeah... sounds gross, I know!), but I've got cucumbers that will otherwise go to waste!

I've gotten 16 pints out of my beans so far... I'm hoping I can get more out of the garden before they stop producing. At the very least, I'm sure I'll get a few more servings to string up and dry, making "leather britches."

Tomatoes are yet to come... but once they come in, there will be plenty of canning to do!

garden news

I planted my garden late this year because of my trip to Alaska. Normally, my garden should "come in" during that time frame, and I didn't want to lose it all! Alpine helped me a lot this year, and our garden looked really good because of it! Everything that grew has grown huge... some of it is starting to die back now, so it's not as pretty and green, but nevertheless, here's a sampling of our wonderful garden:



It started with a broadfork and a hoe...











... and ended with some good fruit!

beans

pumpkins

zucchini


tomatoes

cucumbers

popcorn and sweet corn

sunflowers

pretty morning glory weeds

a taste of Alaska

No, not Alaska pictures yet, but something I brought back from Alaska: beer! Alpine sampled (ok, drank) them all, and liked the Oatmeal Stout (green label) best, followed by the Amber (red lablel). Believe it or not, I actually drank a Summer Ale at the Red Onion Saloon in Skagway. More on that later...

What's that? How'd I get a six-pack of beer to Kentucky from Alaska? When I bought this beer in Skagway, I wasn't sure how I was going to get it home. I had considered shipping it, but I really didn't have the opportunity to ship it. So, I took it to the airport. Yeah, yeah... I hear you laughing from here. They wouldn't let me carry the beer on the plane, like they used to... so I had to either check it or chuck it (not chug it, as I would have liked to have done at that point). There wasn't enough room in my bag, so we put two bottles in each of our bags... mine and my parents. I just KNEW they were going to get broken, and all our crap would smell like beer! I was so sure that I made a bet with my dad... $10 that 3 would be broken: one in each bag. He said none would be broken, and this is one bet I gladly paid up! So, that $10 basically doubled the price of the beer. At least it made it home. =)

Let me just finish our airport story: We began our air trip home in Vancouver, so not only were we in an international airport, but we were also trying to get back into the US. Yeah, had never done that before. Customs really wasn't that bad, but getting on the plane took forever. After after we checked the beer, we had to call our airline so they could bring us FRAGILE stickers. So we waited, and waited. Finally, they came, we placed the stickers on our bags and sent them down the conveyor belt. Then we go through airport security. My parents bought some syrup for my grandmother... it was taken. We brought a jar of peanut butter with us from Virginia (it was still unopened), and they took that, too. So, no liquids (not even 2 expensive 1-liter bottles of unopened water), no certain types of food... oh yeah, no knives. You'd think that was an easy one, but, in the craziness that was Vanvouver International, it wasn't so easy. I'd bought an Alaskan Ulu Knive and Bowl set for a good friend. It was one of the few things NOT made in China, and I wasn't really interested in going to Alaska and buying a bunch of trinket crap made in freakin' China. I had it packed in my checked luggage, but with the beer emergency, I had to move it. Unfortunately, it went erroneously into my carry on bag. Yep - ooops! Luckily, they allowed me to complete a form, along with my credit card number, to ship the knife to myself. It just arrived this week, and along with the knife, I received a shipping bill that, coincidentally, also basically doubled the price of the knife. At least it made it home, right?

I really do love flying... but this experience was very trying!

one month!

i'm getting bad at this... it's been a month since i last posted, and frankly, tomorrow will make a month since i landed in Alaska! time flies... aren't i supposed to be having fun?!? of course i'm having fun... just busy fun:

• for my friends in "the business", it's registration time. that's all i need to say!
• job changes bring fun times... stretched thin times, but fun times. remember registration time? job changes take me away from the front line periodically. THAT'S all i need to say!
• the fruits of our labor bring a wonderful garden! and a wonderful garden needs to be put up (why am i here instead of at the food processor?). i will soon show you these fruits... just like i will show you those pictures from my trip... and everything else i intend on showing you. =)
• vacations, family reunions, birthdays, anniversaries... i look up, and two months have passed!
• school... i'm in the last year of school, i hope! i need to complete my internship (eventually) and complete two classes, then i'm done! woohoo!!
• relay for life rules... but i'm the county chair this year. i didn't realize it at each individual decision-time, but i've suddenly decided that i've filled my plate too full. i'll just do the best i can and survive it... and be glad this is all i have to survive. i'm lucky to be complaining about a busy life instead of dealing with some major illness. THAT is why i relay.

oh well... at least i'm not the only one who posts few and far between. alpine always posts better than i do... but he always manages his time better than i do. i should take some notes! my other blog friends don't post very often either, so... we either need to constantly one-up each other so we're posting more about what's going on in our lives (which was kind of the intent for this blog, anyway)... or just live our lives and not worry about the blog. i guess i see which way i'm leaning... living is always more important than some dumb blog... but... if i'm not DOING this, then why am i doing this? i'm not sure how yet, but i'll do better.