Gardening: "A Subversive Activity"?

Fellow gardeners: Have you ever considered your garden "a subversive plot"? I hadn't. But it makes sense. And knowing this, I feel more empowered and impelled to continue this subversive activity (hee hee)...

Below is an 18-minute video of Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International. He believes "A genuine shift of power in society will follow when people take food production into their own hands. Some staggering statistics are offered here, that really take the conversation beyond gardening as simply a healthy, virtuous hobby." (Note: his humor is a little hokey at the beginning, so just bear with him. He's got some really good things to say. :) )

Fall Reminders

For most of us, fall is definitely in the air! The days have cooled, the nights have started to freeze, and the leaves are turning colors and falling. Time for fall cleaning and retiring that garden bed. I love gardening, but I have to admit it's a relief when I get a break each winter. :)

It's time to finish those canning projects and add the finishing touches to our harvest for the winter. I brought in all the pumpkins and melons (none of which we planted--they just grew on their own) to store them indoors, and now my food storage room is about full. It's a good feeling.

It's also time for fall planting, for those of you who, like us, add a few permanent plants each year. We planted a fruit tree (to replace one from last year, that didn't make it), a grape plant, and four raspberry plants. Now is a very good time to plant any of these, as long as they are potted plants (and not bare root). Keep watering them until it freezes consistently at night and they should do fine through the winter and come back beautifully in the spring.

Oh, and for those who missed my autumn post last year with tips for staying healthy as the weather cools, click here.

Happy fall, everyone!

Pickle Recipe, Updated

I posted this recipe last year, but as I have been canning more pickles lately (every Saturday for three Saturdays in a row, to be exact), I saw the need to update the recipe to be more understandable.

Here is my mom's pickle recipe. Use as-is for 7 quarts. For 7 pints, cut recipe in half.

HOMEMADE PICKLES
Yield: 7 quarts

2 1/4 quarts water (or 9 c.)
1 1/2 quarts vinegar (or 6 c.)
3/4 c. canning salt (make sure it's canning salt)
3 allspice in each quart bottle
1 clove garlic in each quart bottle
1 hot pepper (if desired) in each quart bottle--Shilling whole chillies (I like it without these)
1 long stem of dill in each quart bottle

Clean and boil quart bottles. Allow to cool. Clean cucumbers. Put allspice, garlic, pepper (optional), and dill in jars. Put in cucumbers (sliced or whole). Bring water and vinegar to a boil, then add salt. Fill and seal one jar at a time.

I processed them by using the boiling bath, and used these rules to determine how long to keep them in (time calculated after pot has resumed boiling): 

Altitude adjustment:

• 1000-6000 feet, pints 15 minutes, quarts 20 minutes.
• 6000+ feet, pints 20 minutes, quarts 25 minutes. 

Note: You can buy canning salt in a paper bag or a box and it says canning salt. It is just plain salt--nothing added. If you have trouble finding it at the store, you might try looking on the internet; I saw it there. Find the dill in the fresh produce (I once found some in a little container) or a neighbor's garden.

Root Cellaring

I have been learning about root cellaring lately and recently read this book by Mike and Nancy Bubel.  It gave me ideas about how to better store my fall produce in our basement, and what options we have for building in the future.  I would love to have my own root cellar and be able to fill it with our own produce to last through the winter. Imagine not having to rely on the grocery store at all for fruits and vegetables...

I hadn't thought much about root cellaring until I saw this book and started contemplating why this method of storing fruits and vegetables might be important.  One answer is obvious: If the electricity went out for any length of time, all the fruits and vegetables I have in my freezer (which is mostly what I have in there) would need to be used quickly or go bad.  The other answer is that, while home canning is an important skill to know and use, and that is a great way to build up food storage, it also takes a lot of energy (physically and electrically) to put up food that way--so it's not actually the most environmentally friendly option.  Besides that, eating your produce fresh (or fresh-cooked) is more nutritious than eating bottled goods anyway.

Do any of you have a cellar or had one growing up?  Memories? Do any of you have aspirations, like I do, to build one?

Canning Pickles

A couple weeks ago I was grateful to receive several cucumbers from neighbors, since the ones we planted never produced. (We'll be tweaking the garden for next year; every year we learn something new.) I had planted cucumbers mostly because I wanted to make pickles, since I remembered all the homemade pickles I ate growing up, and how inferior the store variety tasted compared to them. I also wanted to can pickles because I didn't want to buy them but I did want them in our food storage.

It wasn't a huge canning project (which is good, since I don't yet have the energy for anything too big anyway), but it was enough to help me feel I accomplished something and to give me a sense of self-sufficiency.

I look forward to tasting them in 4-6 weeks, when the pickles have cured!

(If anyone would like the recipe, let me know. It's pretty basic and does not include any of that pre-packaged pickle solution stuff.)

Making and Canning Applesauce

My aunt and uncle's trees produced more apples this fall than they could handle, so they asked around the family for anyone interested in taking some of them off their hands. I ended up taking about 100 pounds, with the intention of doing a lot of canning. Since my family likes applesauce and could potentially eat a lot of it (just plain as well as in recipes) over the next couple years, I decided to make most of the apples into applesauce.

Because of my schedule I haven't been able to dedicate even one whole day to this endeavor and have to do it in a few hour chunks here and there. So it's a good thing apples save! Yes, it takes way too long, and no, I don't particularly enjoy the whole process.

But there is something so satisfying about seeing the results of my labors.

And there is also a lot to be said for the example this sets for my children, and how they learn that applesauce isn't just something you buy at the store. They are also learning from the experience of watching and participating, just as I did growing up.

Lastly, I love how none of the products of this process are wasted, since we compost it all.