A Canner's Must Have!

I love whole cranberry sauce but I prefer that my sauce not be saucy and to hold up on a spoon.  When following the recipe of one 12 oz bag of cranberries, 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar that I use, it is more of a "sauce" and less like the "jelly" that I want.

When cranberry sauce is not canned, you can use gelatin to get a thick texture but gelatin does not work  through the canning process.   If you are a canner or plan on starting to can, I want to recommend a product that I have been using.  It is called "Clear Jel" and is sold on-line at Kitchen Krafts.  This is the only thickener approved for use in canning.  It does not break down or separate like cornstarch or flour does when canned.

 This is my cranberry sauce after making it with "Clear Jel" Starch :)

It is easy to use.  It does not take much, very similar to the quantities that you may use of cornstarch but I have found it does get thicker faster.  I recommend that you experiment a little with it because I could see that it would be easy to add too much and get things too thick.  So far, I have used this for apple pie filling and cranberry sauce and it is terrific.  I am real excited about all of the possibilities.

Thanks for Visiting!

Will Pleading Work?

I have asked them nicely and I have even threatened them.  Neither has worked.  I am now ready to plead  for some eggs.   

They are all looking beautiful again in their new feather coats and the chicken coop looks like someone got into a pillow fight . . . but still no eggs.

 I shouldn't say no eggs, I do get an egg or so every other day from someone, and I am grateful for that.   

I hate to even say this . . . but I have had to resort to buying eggs.  Something I have not had to do in over a year.  Sincerely, my chickens are my pets and I love them all whether they lay or not.  They will never be destined to the stew pot but I have to admit it was hard to go back to store bought eggs when I was used to beautiful big brown fresh eggs.

 
My girls are no longer "spring chickens" so I know that they will no longer be prolific layers but I think that 2 or 3 eggs a day is not too much to ask.  Unfortunately, all that I have read confirms that pleading will not matter.  Their egg laying has to do with their age, their molt and the shorter days of winter.  I will be patient and savor the few eggs I do get each week and hope for the best in the Spring. 

Thanks for Visiting my Garden!

Garlic Update

My garlic is growing!  I showed you when I planted it about a month ago (see that post here) and I wanted to show you how it is doing now.  Looks like every one of the cloves has sprouted.  This is the first time I have tried to grow garlic and I hope it keeps doing well and survives through the winter.

 
I look forward to dehydrating some of it and making my own garlic powder, Yum!  But . .  I know from experience, I shouldn't count my chickens before they're hatched : )

Thanks for visiting my garden!

Gardens Need Worm Poop

I realized that all those things that I have heard about worm poop is true.  In my opinion there is no better organic plant food on this planet than worm castings.  When I started adding worm poop to my raised beds my veggies grew bigger, faster and greener.

It doesn't take much either.  I add about a 1 inch layer to the top of the bed when I can.  I do not buy it, I make my own by keeping a compost bin filled with thousands, (maybe millions :) of red wigglers.  I have been doing this for about three years now and have had great success.  I placed the bin in a protected area with some shade to protect the worms from the extreme heat of summer.  We do not have hard freezes here but I think that if there is enough material on top to protect them, they could survive pretty cold weather.  I didn't start with many worms, just a few my sister brought me from her garden and they multiplied exponentially.  It takes a lot of worms to get a decent amount of castings. 

I use the type of bin that opens at the bottom so that I do not have to strain or sift the castings. 

The finished compost/castings works its way to the bottom and I collect it from there.  I am careful not to over harvest or to disturb the worms any more than I have to. I will occasionally gently turn the surface to distribute the food.  I don't bother to sift it.  I do not mind chunks or pieces of this and that.  If something is too big to plant around I just toss it back in for another round.  

I compost too, but instead of putting our food scraps on the compost pile, I give all of our vegetable waste to the worms, including eggshells and sometimes shredded paper.  I also feed them leaves and small plants as needed. 

I water as needed to keep them moist. I keep the lid on because they like the dark and in return the worms give me beautiful, sustainable amounts of sweet smelling castings for my garden. I hope this inspires you to give vermiculture a try!

Thanks for visiting my garden!

Cranberry Salad

I know, Thanksgiving is over but there are still fresh cranberries out in the stores and not to mention we also have Christmas dinner to think about so I wanted to share this easy, yummy cranberry salad recipe. 

I have several packages of raw cranberries to can this week and will also be sharing that with you but first here is a no cook salad that can be made in advance or taken to that holiday potluck you are invited to. 

1  12 oz pkg of fresh cranberries
3/4 cup orange juice
1 cup sugar
1 apple grated unpeeled
1 8 oz can crushed pineapple drained
1 6 oz box cherry jello
3/4 cup water 1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup whipping cream (or 3 cups cool whip)
1 8 oz pkg softened cream cheese

Chop the raw cranberries, orange juice and sugar in a food processor or blender til coarse chopped.  Put mixture into a bowl and stir in the grated apple, pecans and pineapple.

Boil 3/4 cup water and add Jello, stirring until dissolved.  Let cool.  Add to cranberry mixture and stir well. 

 

Whipped cream topping:  Whip one cup of whipping cream then add softened cream cheese and mix til smooth or add softened cream cheese to 3 cups of cool whip and mix til smooth.  Use this as a topping or as a layer in the glass dish.

How it is served is optional.  You can put directly into a serving dish or mold and refrigerate til firm (overnight) and serve it without whipped cream mixture or you can refrigerate the mixture and when it is firm spoon it out and layer it into a glass dish with whip cream and cream cheese mixture between the layers.

This is how I did it (I also put some dried cranberries on top) but next time I will probably not use as much of the whip cream mixture.  I will only put one layer of whipped cream/cream cheese in the center because I think too much takes away from the fresh taste of the cranberries. 

Thank you for visiting my kitchen!

Mail-order Plants

I just received a box from Stark Bros. I have never ordered from them before so I was anticipating the arrival with some skepticism.  I told myself I wouldn't order plants through the mail again after having had bad experiences in the past with other mail order nurseries.  I decided to give them a try after seeing a YouTube video about an apple tree that was purchased from them and it looked very healthy and was doing well as an espalier.  

The issues I have found with mail order plants are size, health and damage in shipping.  Even though the companies I purchased from in the past described the size of the plants that they would be sending, the plants still seemed to be much smaller than described and expected.  The tiny size made the chances of success even less possible and many of the plants I have bought on-line did not make it.  I would say I have had about a 50% success rate.  Often plants that are sent through the mail are also damaged from being tossed around.  This has been my experience anyway.  The companies I have ordered from all have a money back guarantees but I found it was so much trouble to jump through all their hoops required to get a refund, it wasn't worth trying. My advice to anyone thinking about buying mail order plants is to expect what you pay for.  If the price seems very good it is probably because the plant is very small. 

I decided to give the mail-order thing another try so I ordered Asparagus starts, Rhubarb bulbs and thornless blackberries.  All, if I am successful at getting them to grow, will provide us with edibles year after year.  I am on a mission to plant as many self-replenishing edibles as I can. 

Even though Stark Bros. packaged the plants and bulbs well, they arrived tossed around with soil covering the leaves.  The blackberry plants are small but most of them have decent size leaves that are dark green and healthy looking. 

 Asparagus and Rhubarb roots look very healthy and are good sized!

After planting I will show you where I put them.  

Thanks for visiting my garden! 

Putting Things Off

My front porch is one of my "holding areas" for plants that need to be put into the ground.  When I'm out and see a good deal or find something I just have to have, I bring it home and I put it on my front porch.  If the purchase is too big for the front porch I put it on the back patio near the hose where it can be easily watered.  There, they will be taken care of until I plant them and sometimes they will wait for weeks or months before I get around to doing it.


My mom had a large patch of Iris dug up and divided so she gave me some of the rhizomes to put in my garden.  That was a couple months ago.  I kept them in a box on my porch long enough so I decided to finally plant them.  It literally took me 10 minutes so sometimes I wonder why I put these kind of things off. 

They do not look very good now, but they will!

While I was out planting I was so frustrated to see newly planted plants that were nibbled off to the ground.  It is irritating to spend the money and time to plant something for some creature to come along in one night and strip it down to the ground. 

 Before

 After!

I covered it to see if It would come back but I would be surprised if I could save it now.  Aargh!