Preserving: Annual Tally

Tracy is a blogging friend over at Home [in] stead: Voluntary Simplicity One Step at a Time. She did a recent post called Tally Ho! in which she summarized her annual preserving accomplishments. Using Tracy's example, I'd like to share my preserving successes for the season.

Canning:

This is my second year at canning. I was quite fearful at first, but everything came out fine and we enjoyed our products. This year, I bought more half-pints (250 ml) and pint (500 ml) jars to expanded a bit:

• 5 half-pints tomatoes
• 4 half-pints hot pickled beans with banana peppers
• 6 half-pints blackberries (wild)
• 2 pints and 4 half-pints blueberries (store bought)
• 5 half-pints strawberry jam (store bought)
• 4 half-pints blueberry/rhubarb jam

Drying:

I've dried herbs several times. This year I added Swiss Chard. My first try was in the oven at the condo. It worked fine, but I wanted a way to do it up at the cabin. I experimented with air drying and it was a success, if a bit labour intensive. So far I have three pint jars full ready for soups and stews.

Freezing:

My freezer space is very limited, both at the condo and the cabin. On my last visit to town I froze combo packs of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and celery (left over store bought) for winter soups.

Storing:

I cured and stored red onions and potatoes. The onions hang in the downstairs guest room for several months. I wrap my potatoes in newspaper and use plastic trays to store them under the guest bed (my cabin's cool spot) where they last all winter. Carrots and beets stay in the ground to keep them fresh and crispy.

I know this isn't a large stash of food for winter, but it's fun to pull out a few things I preserved myself. Each year my cache gets larger, so who knows what the future will hold. Did you do any preserving this year? How did it go? - Margy

Fall's Early Glow

Night is coming quicker this time of year. And with it, comes a warm early glow.

We don't often get sunset colours in our little aqua valley, but this night was an exception.

I love how the salmon coloured sky reflects in the water. -- Margy

Container Gardening Hits and Misses

Each year I have garden hits and misses. But even things that don't do well teach me something. This year I added more pots on the deck to increase my "acreage." My hits were:

• Snow Peas
• Scarlet Runner Beans
• Bush Beans
• Acorn Squash
• Marketmore Cucumbers
  
• Banana Peppers
• Alaska Gold Potatoes
  
• Norland Red Potatoes
  
• Bell Peppers
• Rhubarb
  
• Roma Tomatoes
• Patio Tomatoes
• Early Girl Tomatoes
  

My misses were:

• Zucchini (smaller)
• Eggplant (died)
  
• Burpless Cukes (died)
  
• English Cukes (died)
• Pumpkin (no sets)
  

I learned not to give up on cucumbers. After two types died, the third was a success. I'm going to try eggplant again next year just to make sure and I'll augment the soil or rotate crops to get my zucchini back up to par.

Do you do container vegetable gardening? What are some of your hits and misses? - Margy

"New" Cabin Deck Update

I had to go down to my former school district to help out with a few consulting projects. Wayne said he had to stay behind to mow the lawn. Now, I don't think I'm dumb enough to buy that excuse, but he did use his "time alone" wisely.

I've already shared how we painted our cabin's cedar deck with wood stain. We still needed to do our shed and bridge to shore. But rather than make everything beige, we decided to accent it with redwood.

We still have a bit to go, but this is a great start. Nice work Wayne! Lookin' good. -- Margy

Pumped

On Monday, I shared how our good friend John got his air compressor running. Here's why. Last summer we hired a scuba diver to help John put fifteen 55-gallon plastic barrels under our float cabin. We've added extra weight (translated stuff) to the float over the years. The plastic barrels filled with air make the cedar log float more buoyant.

This year we needed to add barrels to our floating woodshed and my garden float. Both had logs completely submerged. The bottom of our firewood pile was soaking wet and my garden soil couldn't drain. Plus, the longer the cedar logs stay submerged, the quicker they become waterlogged. While Wayne and John were making it happen, I filmed the steps. Take a look.

Now the float logs are well above the lake's surface, and there's still enough warm fall sunshine to dry the tops. With the barrels underneath and the drying logs on top, everything will stay high and dry. Thanks John and your trusty compressor. We're really pumped! - Margy

Mr. Fix-It Man

Float cabins sometimes need a little help with the float part. Cedar is well known for its buoyancy and resistance to water-logging, but even 40-foot logs will sink over time. In the "old days," they used to shove a dry log underneath to raise a float back up. Now, plastic 55-gallon barrels and 275-gallon plastic totes are used to give that added boost.

Watch later this week for a post about the whole process. But before we could begin, we needed a compressor to fill our barrels with air. That's where Mr. Fix-It Man comes in. Of course, that's our good friend John. If it needs to be done, he can do it. And coaxing an ancient compressor he found in the bush back to life was right up his alley.

Here's a short video of Mr. Fix-it Man, er John, in action.

If only we could learn a tenth of what he knows! -- Margy

Cabin Baking: Last of the Season Berry Pie

Berry season is drawing to a close. I've been freezing my meager strawberry pickings. Wayne hates this in our small cabin freezer, but I assure him the inconvenience will pay off. I had about two cups of wild blackberries and a few stalks of rhubarb. I had all the makings for an end-of-season berry pie.

I followed the Fannie Farmer recipe for a double crust 8-inch pie. I love to use Crisco. It doesn't need refrigeration and makes the flakiest crust.

8-Inch Double Pie Crust

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
5-6 tablespoons cold water

Mix flour and salt. Cut the shortening in until it's crumbly. Add cold water slowly until the dough forms a ball. I refrigerate my dough before rolling. It makes it so much easier.

The rest was easy. I put the blackberries on the bottom and sprinkled them with a liberal coating of sugar and a tablespoon of flour. Next came diced rhubarb and my strawberries. Another liberal coating of sugar and a tablespoon of flour. Top with a few bits of butter before covering with the top crust.

Bake for 10 minutes at 425 then 30-40 minutes at 350 until the crust is golden brown. Now here comes the hard part, waiting for the pie to cool and the juices to thicken. We couldn't wait - seems like we never can. -- Margy