We live in town. Along a busy highway. For a town lot our back yard is a nice size but it’s not ideal for a garden. We tried for a few years to raise tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and some other things. It didn’t work. I have an herb garden and that’s it. A garden in town just wasn’t working for us so we gave it up.
This year we were blessed by a friend who had more green beans than she had time to can. Add in the fact that she still had canned beans from a couple years ago and she decided it was time to pass the produce along. So we picked 2 buckets of beans. And also came home with a bucket of zucchini, a yellow squash, and a pile of beets.
I’ve never thought I particularly cared for beats. The only way I’ve had them is pickled and I didn’t like ’em much. I borrowed my friends canner to can beans – no garden – no canner. She told me to use the pressure canner for the beets too.
10 pounds of pressure for about 15 minutes I think. And the skins just slipped right off. Beautiful bright purple fruit. Let them cool, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put them on a slice of buttered bread, and add some fresh basil. I wouldn’t want it every day but once a summer isn’t bad 😀
I canned 13 quarts of green beans. It’s really not hard, and I do like having home canned produce. But the long process of canning the 2 canners of beans fried my large burner on my stove. The second large burner on my stove. And one of the small burners doesn’t work. So I now have one functioning burner on my stove. A small burner. No more canning till I have a new stove.
Praise God for the bountiful harvest. We hope to get around 20 dozen ears of sweet corn next week to put in the freezer. And I plan to buy apples and make applesauce. But that will be the extent of my homemaking attempts involving preserving food!
Do you have a garden? If you are close to me and you have an abundance of tomatoes you would like to share you would be my best friend forever 😀
And I have a fun surprise – remember the giveaway I was part of awhile back for an ipad mini? Well it’s happening AGAIN! A really cool giveaway is coming up – starts next week – Tuesday the 13th. So come back then!
Sew a Fine Seam
We have a garden but I have two brown thumbs so if we get anything out of it we’re blessed. This is only our second year for it at this house. We planted seed that had been in the freezer for two years and miraculously they came up! Our corn never produced anything and last time I checked the tomatoes weren’t really doing anything either but they have been taken over by weeds. The green beans did great, not enough to can (and my dad had just given us about 20 quarts already canned) so I roasted them – was SO yummy! The whole time I was picking I was lamenting about it and just kept chanting, “I garden because my family needs to eat, I garden because my family needs to eat…” Can you tell I don’t love it 🙂 I want to love it, I think I’m supposed to love it….but I don’t.
I hear you Jenni – I’d rather be creating something or painting something or redecorating my house! But I do kind of enjoy it when I take the time for it. And I think it would be SO good for my kids! They have never shelled peas – ever. Oh well, if they get married and have big gardens I will go show them how to do it all then. At least I do know how to do some of it and can pass the knowledge along if and when it’s needed 😉
We only have a herb garden, too. We’ve tried, but the squirrels eat everything, even our tomatoes! 🙁 I have great memories of canning pickled beets with my Grandpa, and now my parents (it’s the only thing I’ve ever canned) I couldn’t love them more!
The canned goods you can buy are so much better now than they were when I was a kid – even my Mom agrees! I remember canning bushel after bushel of peaches – several years ago my Dad did the Math and said it wasn’t worth the work. And that was based on the price of the name brands 🙂
We have a city garden. We tried planting in the backyard, but it proved to be a bad choice. Now we have productive plants in the front yard with plans for more planting next year. My husband inherited a Troy-Bilt tiller, so he is serious about urban gardening.
We love beets here. Roast or boil and the skins will be easy to peel. Those canned green beans will be such a wonderful reminder of summer as the snowflakes fly.
I bet your garden is lovely Kellie! I might try my hand at a raised bed again sometime – maybe after we get rid of the pool we set up for the kids every summer!
I love planting…. it makes me feel relax. 🙂
How wonderful that you have friends sharing the garden abundance with you. Looks like you kept yourself busy stocking up on all the delicious treats for winter. Those beats are so pretty. Beautiful pictures, as usual.
Thanks Amy. i think a big garden could be lots of fun along with all the work – it’s so awesome to see the produce stack up!
Never been without a garden. And all did well this year starting with strawberries.
Would share our tomatoes but I think we are too far apart.
🙂 I might just make a quick trip out there some afternoon to get tomatoes! A quick afternoon trip has been done before!
I wish I had a green thumb. Right now I live in an apartment, so no garden. But I have friends who also bless me with their extra produce. I also belong to a fruit and vegetable co-op and get lots of produce weekly (love it!). When I lived in PA, I had a house “in town” also with a tiny yard. The town was just about as tiny as my town. Most of my friends were farmers and it was amazing what they’d share with me! I’ve never learned to can, but I know how to freeze things. The neatest thing I’ve ever helped can was maple syrup when I lived in the Pocono Mountains of PA. I helped with the whole process from pounding spouts into trees and hanging buckets to collecting sap to pouring it in the huge pans to boil to stoking the continuously burning fires to stirring to the finishing boil in the house on the pot belly stove…to canning it! Lots of work, but well worth it! I’ve enjoyed reading your website, and I’ll be back.
I think the process of making maple syrup sounds so intriguing. We buy maple syrup locally and they had an open house this past spring but it was a weekend we had other plans and couldn’t go. I’m hoping they do it again next spring!