Bright Ideas

The first day of our Canning Season was September 1, 2017. The head cook (and only cook) began boiling seven quart jars in the large water bath. He cut generously donated cucumbers into long spears, and little rings. We have our own dill, so you probably guessed the kind of pickles he made.

I love dill spears; they “crunch” when you bite them. The dill in our garden is a volunteer from a crop we planted years ago. They are a weed if they grow where you don’t want them, and Brice pulls them out and pitches them in the pile of brush he takes to the dump. I love the way he smells after wrestling the plants out of the garden.

No need to worry; it comes up all over the garden, so there’s plenty to go to seed and flavor the pickles. It also reseeds for next year. Fresh cucumbers taste so wonderful, full of water and snap.

Other crops we freeze. That started with tomatoes; Is there anything better that a beautiful red, round, home grown tomato? We freeze bags of blanched tomatoes to use in cooking. No need for case lots of tomato anything. We did not freeze any corn; we have six or seven quart bags left from last year. And I enjoyed the last little ear, Sept. 7.

We didn’t can or freeze beans. Our efforts to freeze beans have always been very disappointing. So we just enjoyed the green color and firm texture of fresh beans. Cooked only 10 minutes, they still had a little snap in them! Fresh green beans were eaten every day we had them, but they stopped before we ran out of corn.

Yellow and green beans are left to grow the beans inside them. Those we called “shell outs.” back in Missouri. We have a pressure canner, so it doesn’t take long to can them. I eat very few, but they can become refried beans with little effort, or an easy addition to soup.

The carrot crop was a surprise. Covered with a blanket of purslane, they struggled to come up. Brice had to let them grow long enough to distinguish them from the offending weed. When the grandsons came over, they wanted to dig carrots, and what came out were big, long, beautiful, orange carrots! We’ve never had such luck before. We enjoyed them fresh, and shared them occasionally. We could even freeze some blanched carrot rings to add to soups or stew.

Our zucchini were slow this year, and we ate them with lunch and supper until we ran out. They are picked when six inches long. Waiting a day results in a watermelon sized zucchini! Yes, I know some people use them to make zucchini bread, but that uses sugar and flour, substances that raise my blood sugar levels.

And now two inches of rain fell, making it a struggle to capture tomatoes left in the garden. We’ll wait, enjoying an excuse to use the eight gallons of apples Brice picked from our big tree. He even made himself a pie! And the crust was flaky and light.