Pick Your Own Strawberries

It didn’t really take very long to pick a box as the plants were literally dripping with red ripe berries.  I ended up spending $17 on strawberries and it took me about 45 minutes to pick them.  I ended up with about 2 gallons of sliced strawberries.  So what do you do with 2 gallons of strawberries?  I got them with the intention of making jam and it turns out that I am actually going to have enough left to freeze about half.

SugarFree  Strawberry Jam Recipe

This is the recipe from the Sure Jell No Sugar box:

• 3 pints of strawberries
• 1 box of Sure Jell No Sugar Added
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup splenda

Preparation is key in canning anything.  Make sure your jars are hot and sterile.  Soak your lids in boiling water while preparing and make sure you have all your ingredients measured and ready to go.  You need to stir the jam constantly so will not have time to measure ingredients.

Prepare strawberries by washing and de-stemming. I sliced mine as well.

Clean sliced strawberries

Slice or not, you then mash them until they are about 3 cups with some chunks of fruit remaining.

Crush strawberries with a potato masher

Put the crushed strawberries in a 3 quart pan.  Add sure jell and 3/4 cup of water.

Strawberries cooking for jam

Cook on high heat until they come to a full rolling boil that does not stop when you stir.  Continue to boil for exactly 1 minute.  Remove from heat.

Rolling boil

Skim any foam that formed on the top and ladle into hot, clean jars.  Fill to 1/4 to 1/8 inch from top.

Ladle into jars

When you are finished filling the jars, wipe the rims with a wet paper towel to remove any jam that might be there.  Put hot lids on jars and screw down with rings.  Let rest until the ‘tops pop’ and the jars are cool.  This completes the sealing process.

Strawberry jam jars resting and cooling

Voila!  That’s all there is to it.  It took me about an hour to make 4 pints of sugar free jam and 8 pints of  regular jam.  I used about half of the strawberries so the fruit cost of the jam was about $8.  I used 4 cups of sugar in the regular jam recipe which costs about $1.  1/2 cup of splenda which might cost 50 cents and $5 for the Sure Jell.   It works out to about $1.21 per pint.  I honestly don’t buy jam or jelly much but I know the cost comparison is favorable and I have the added benefit of knowing exactly what is in it.

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joiseyshowaa/

I live in an area where almost everyone  learned to plant from their parents and grandparents.  You plant corn when the whippoorwil starts calling.  You plant above ground vegetables in the light of the moon and root crops in the dark of the moon.   This is the way things have been done for generations.

Being new to farming as a living, I thought I would research it a bit.  It seems that there may be some basis in fact although it has not been scientifically proven.  According to Marian Owen of PlanTea, it may have something to do with the water tables rising during the gravitational pull of the moon.

We did decide to plant this week because the moon is waxing (coming full) this week.  The danger of frost should be well over by the time the seeds sprout and we are expecting showers through the coming week.  All signs that indicate a good time to plant.

In the ground today, are butter peas, thorogood limas, Contender green beans, Golden Queen and Silver Queen corn.  It is still a bit early to plant corn but it will give it a bit of a head start and we will plant another few rows of late corn in early June.  We also planted half a row of crook neck yellow squash.  It’s probably a bit on the early side for that as well.

The cabbage slips are starting to recover from being transplanted and are actually growing a little.  The broccoli plants are looking great and I have tiny lettuce starting to spring up everywhere.  Not a sign of the spinach or beets yet though.  The beets were planted on the right moon phase but the spinach was off.

Cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers are going to be the last thing in the ground as they really need the soil to heat up before they will start to grow.  I think I am going to have to have another bit of a garden just for them as our main garden is full to over flowing already.

Do you plant by the moon?  Do you use the Farmer’s Almanac?  How do you decide when to plant??

Packman and Major Broccoli slips

I have decided to document the kinds of vegetables that I plant and their progress through the year.  I have been experimenting with different types of the same vegetables and really need to keep track of how they do.  Last week we planted 30 cabbage slips.  I believe they were Market Pride.

Today I put down 18 broccoli plants of two different types, Packman and Major.  The Packman plants looked much healthier.  It’s not a lot of broccoli but it’s late to be planting it and I am not sure how it is going to do.  We still should have some to freeze and some to eat.  I also planted Bloomsdale Savoy spinach and Salad Bowl lettuce.  Salad Bowl is a leaf lettuce, it does not head up but it grows quickly and is delicious.

We also planted a whole row of yellow onions.  We added lime to the row this year as they did not fare terribly well last year.  They didn’t die but they weren’t much more than an inch in diameter.  Hopefully they will do better this year.

We decided not to plant black eyed peas or any of the dried beans that we eat on a regular basis.  When I can buy a bag of dry beans for about a buck, it just doesn’t make sense to plant them.  The money for seeds and the labor to harvest them is better spent on something that is more expensive.

We are champing at the bit to get the real summer favorites planted.  It’s still a bit to early to plant tomatoes, peppers and squash.  I have lost them too often to a late spring frost.  The cabbage type plants will actually winter over even if it’s in single digits so I don’t worry about a few chilly nights for them.

Randy is laying off rows with the tractor.  This is a new experience for me but he SWEARS we will not be over run with wire grass this year.  The tractor means that we have much, much more space between the rows and we are planting them lengthwise in the garden instead of across the width. This will allow him to cultivate between the rows with the tractor.

Now the bunny rabbits are a whole different ball game and I am still considering putting up a small fence around the garden but it will have to be moveable so he can get the tractor in and out.  If you remember last year, the wild bunnies ate almost all of our green beans.  We eat a lot of green beans over the year and not having them from the garden really hurt our budget.

Preparing the garden

Spring is here!  Although last week, I thought we had jumped right into summer with temperatures in the mid 90s.  This week we are back to spring with temperatures in the 60s and 70s and nights in the 40s.

The garden has been plowed and disced and then smoothed with the harrow.  You might notice that we have upgraded our tractor.  I am still not sure how a tractor this big is going to cultivate between the rows but Randy assures me that it will.  For the moment, I am thrilled that we don’t have a ton of wire grass already.

We got a row of cabbage planted yesterday.  Last week I had despaired that we had left it too late but the cooler temperatures are encouraging.  I want to get brussel sprouts and broccoli planted tomorrow along with some onions.

Iris

Last month, I planted raspberry, blackberry and blue berry bushes that my daughter and grandson brought me.  Randy made a spot for me in the back yard.  They should get lots of sunshine back there and it’s in an out of the way spot so the mower won’t run over them.  They may not bear a ton of fruit this year but in addition to the wild blackberries, I should have enough for a cobbler or two this year.

My raised bed gardens are probably going to be put on hold for the year.  I know I am going to get one for a salad garden but the rest will have to wait until we have more time.  I’m disappointed but I have had to face the fact that there are only so many projects that I can manage.

Wild violets

There is always time to enjoy the first spring flowers.  The yard is dotted with wild violets.  They spring up everywhere and add color to the spring grass.

It’s fun to walk around the farm this time of year.  Flowers spring up in the most unlikely places.  There are clumps of sunny yellow daffodils back behind the pack house in the pasture.  I suppose they survive because they taste bad enough that nothing will eat them.

The redbud trees are blooming along the edge of the woods and if you look closely enough you might even find a jack in the pulpit hidden among the trees.

The iris are blooming early this year.  I don’t think they bloomed until May last year.  I’m afraid that all of the spring flowers will be over before spring is done.

Then it warmed up and we had a week of warm temperatures in the upper 50s and low 60s.  The ground started to thaw out and life got easier for a few days.  Then it rained.  Now the ground is rotten again and it’s raining again.  I come in with clumps and spatters of red clay up to my knees.

Larry came by to plow the garden last week and it was still frozen.  This week it is too wet.  It looks like it is going to be in a warm rainy period for the next week so we won’t get the garden plowed soon.

I’m going to quit complaining for now about things that I can’t control.   On the brighter side, rainy days are good days to browse through the gardening catalogs and place some early orders.  Burpee has some really interesting tomatoes this year.  I’m not sure that I am brave enough to even plant a black tomato but they also have some that look tye dyed.

Have you started planning your garden?

I haven’t told Randy yet that he will soon be building me some simple boxes for the gardens.  These boxes are easy to construct and easier yet to maintain.  I think that we are going to make them out of left over laps.  These are the rough edges that are left over when you make boards.  A friend of ours has a pile of them so we have a free supply.

The expensive part of starting a square foot garden is the soil mixture.  It needs to be made up of a mixture of compost, peat moss and soil.  The last time I bought peat moss, I paid almost $4 per cubic foot.  If you are making more than a small garden this can add up quickly.  At that time, I was also buying compost as I did not have a compost pile.

This year I have a ready supply of compost material.  I started it last year and it has worked itself into a black, rich soil like pile.  I will keep adding to it this year and should be able to keep a ready source.  Compost is a natural fertilizer and enriches the soil.

The good thing about square foot gardening is that once you have built the first one, there is little to no expense or maintenance.  Unlike a regular garden, you do not have to plow it every year and you don’t have to cultivate it during the gardening season.  Vegetables are planted close enough together that it keeps the garden weed free after the initial plants have grown up.  There simply is no room for weeds.  You don’t walk on the garden so you don’t compact the soil down.  The peat moss and high organic matter in the soil also keeps it ‘fluffy.’

Most of the problems that we had with our garden last year, will be solved with the square foot or raised bed gardens.  First we battled wire grass and then we had the bunny wars over my green beans.  Unfortunately, last year we lost both of these battles.  The worst was the green beans which simply did not survive the bunnies.  Out of 5 rows of green beans we only got about 2 quarts of beans.  The bunnies simply cropped them all off at the stem.  The wire grass simply made the garden unsightly and made it difficult to find the vegetables but the plants produced just as much and possibly more because the grass shaded the plants and kept them moist.

Over the next few weeks, I will be planning what vegetables we will plant and when we will plant them.  I am going to go ahead and start constructing the raised beds in the next month as well.  I want to plant some of the colder weather plants such as cabbage, onions, peas, etc in the raised beds.

Have you started your garden plans yet?  Do you garden in the traditional way or do you use raised beds?

Rosebud

Rosebud is a very special mule.  She came to us as a rescue and was severely underweight.  She has been my project for the last 4 months.  Because of her age, it has been an uphill battle to put weight on her.  Randy has told me several times that it would be impossible to actually have her gain any real weight.

I must admit that I have almost given up several times.  It seems like no matter how much I feed her, she just doesn’t put on a pound.  When my daughter gave me Progressive envision which is supposed to put weight on fast, it was my last hope but thankfully it is working.  It’s very expensive at about $1 per pound but I can tell the difference after just a few weeks.

Rosebud is about 20 years old which is pretty old for a mule.  She has worked hard for most of her life.  We can tell this because she is very familiar with a work harness and a plow.  She also rides and pulls a cart.  I plan to use her to do some light plowing and cultivating in our garden this year.   We won’t do a lot of it at one time but she will be more efficient than either the garden tractor or a hoe.

Come back in the spring of the year and I hope to have pictures of Rosebud at work.

The family gathers each New Years day to eat hog jowl, collard greens and black eyed peas.  This year we are adding stewed tomatoes to the menu.  They don’t really have any traditional meaning but they go really well with the black eyed peas.

Black Eyed Peas are supposed to bring us wisdom in the coming year as the eye looks to the future.  Some also believe that they bring prosperity as the swelling of the dried beans as they are cooked symbolizes the swelling of the family fortunes over the coming year.  Whichever you believe, this is a simple dish to cook which bodes well for those who spent too much time celebrating on New Year’s eve.

Collard greens or greens of any type are also supposed to bring prosperity.  It is said that the leaves of the collard look like folded money when they are cooking.  Again, I’m not so sure I see the resemblance except for the fact that they are both green.  Regardless, they are delicious and very healthy.  Dark leafy greens contain tons of antioxidants including lutein which is supposed to help protect your eyes.

The last component of the traditional New Years Day supper is hog jowl.  Hog jowl is much like bacon only it comes from the jowl of the pig.  R fries it like bacon and it is delicious when eaten on a biscuit or even by itself.   Hog jowl is supposed to bring good health.  I have not been able to trace this tradition back to anything that explains it but we are going to include it because it is dang tasty.

One legend that I have heard regarding this menu is that it dates back to Civil War when the Union troops slaughtered all the livestock and took all the provisions from southern farms and households.  The only thing that they left behind was what they considered inedible such as  black eyed peas, ham hocks and heads.  Greens which grow all year in the south.  The southerners sustained themselves through the winter on what the Union troops left behind.

I am not sure that any of these foods bring health, wealth or wisdom but then again, why tempt fate when this tradition brings a simple, inexpensive meal is both delicious and easy to cook.  Menus such as this are also a reason why folks in the country will have an easier time surviving in tough economic times.  There is little waste and the foods are simple and inexpensive and usually home grown.

What are your New Year’s traditions?  Do you have a traditional meal on New Year’s day?

Wow, 2009 has been busy especially the last few months of it.  I have not been very good at keeping this site updated but with the gardening done, my focus has moved to other things not homestead related.

I am going to be posting more on what we are doing to get the garden ready for next year and I am going to be incorporating a couple of square foot gardens into the garden.

Randy is definitely not a square foot garden fan so this will be an experiment on my part to see what I can accomplish in the square foot gardens that we cannot in the regular garden.  I think I can eliminate two of our largest garden problems with the square foot garden.  Our number one problem was weeds.  I grew more grass in the garden than we had in the front yard.

The second problem was rabbits.  I lost 5 entire rows of green beans to the bunnies.  With a square foot garden, I can put some chicken wire around it easily so that the bunnies will have to eat something else.  This is an easy way to keep rabbits, dogs, crows, etc out of them.

I am also hoping to introduce Rosebud and a bit of mule powered gardening.  This will be a first for me and an almost forgotten art but it should be a fun project.  Rosebud needs a job and it will be a challenge for me to learn.

I can’t wait for 2010 to get here.  We have so much to look forward to this year.  I hope that everyone will join me in planning for a great year to come!

History of Brunswick Stew

According to the Brunswick Stewmaster’s website,

It all started back in 1828 on the banks of the Nottoway River during a hunting party. Dr. Creed Haskins, a member of the House of Delegates from 1839 through 1841, took a group of his friends on a hunting expedition.  While they were on the hunt, camp cook Jimmy Matthews stirred together the first impromptu mixture that has become known as Brunswick Stew. The original thick soup was made from squirrels, onions, and stale bread. When the hunters returned, there was reluctance to try the new mixture. However, the reluctance turned to demands for second and third helpings of the warm, thick stew.

There are many claims that Brunswick stew was first created in Brunswick Co, NC or Brunswick, GA but the Virginia claim is the best documented.  Wherever it was first cooked and eaten it is delicious and a staple here in Brunswick Co, VA.  Over the years, chicken has replaced the squirrel and rabbit that it was cooked with in the past.

The following is a recipe that you can cook at home:

Brunswick Stew Recipe

• 2 chickens (about 3 pounds each), cut into 6 or 8 pieces
• 4 oz of fat back, chopped
• 2 (16-ounce) cans, drained, seeded, and chopped tomatoes
• 4 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels
• 3 medium white potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 2 large onions, thinly sliced
• 2 cups fresh or frozen lima beans
• 1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon sugar, or to taste

Place the chickens and fatback in a large pot.  Add enough water to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer, partially covered, until the chicken is falling off the bones and the broth is well flavored, 2-3 hours. Spoon out and  transfer the chicken to a bowl and cool.

Add the tomatoes, corn, potatoes, onions, and  lima beans. Season with the salt, pepper, and sugar. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook, stirring often, until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, pull the chicken off the bones. Add the chicken back and taste the stew for seasoning. Add more salt, pepper, or sugar as desired. Cook until very thick.  Serve hot in warmed bowls.