Our carpenter friend, Tom, was here yesterday, working on our latest addition to the house, which will be a living room and entryway, including a small laundry room. It looked stormy all evening, but as he was packing to leave, we walked out of the house and saw REAL scary looking clouds just east of us. There was one ugly green one that dropped a big white cylinder-shaped cloud that called our attention. There was actually rotation to it and the outside kept pulling up into the cloud above.

We looked north, toward Cook, and saw big black clouds with plenty of lightening and two big white sheets of precipitation dropping toward the ground; hail! Hail: the gardener’s dreaded enemy, right behind frost.

Would we get sucked up in a tornado? Or would our garden get wiped out by hail? I turned on the weather radio to keep track of the storm. We continued to watch our tornado in the making thing; it was heading slowly to the south. Tom left and I did chores, keeping an eye on both storms.

Later on I heard that there WAS a tornado, or several of them. One was 15 miles away at Sand Lake and the other about the same distance south of us at Buhl. Neither did any damage, fortunately. There was also hail, but we didn’t get any of that, either. This time! Whew! Sometimes Mother Nature is sweet and gentle, but sometimes, she plays hard and for keeps. It’s the challenge that keeps us on our toes, I think.

Readers’ questions:

Canning meat

I have started canning for the first time. Yesterday, I canned deboned chicken in my new pressure canner. It looks like two of my jars leaked some liquid during the processing, but the lids look like they’re tightly sealed. However, about a half inch of meat at the top is not covered with liquid. Is this okay or do I need to add more liquid and reprocess? I also read where you can your own ground meat. Do you add liquid to it after packing it in the jar? If so, what kind of liquid?

Pam Dietz
Eunice, Louisiana

Congratulations, Pam, good job! No worries on the chicken. It’s quite common for some foods to exhaust liquid out of the jar during pressure canning. This happens most often with meats that are processed for quite a while. The chicken is fine; no need to do anything. Yes, I can ground beef. Some I just brown and pack into jars and squish down. I add no liquid. Some, I can with tomato sauce, seasoned for spaghetti sauce. Other times, I add taco seasonings for instant taco filling. But there is no need to add liquid. I do add a bit of water to plain browned hamburger and pack that with it, but I never pour water or broth on it in the jar. — Jackie

Canned bacon

In the current issue someone asked about canned bacon. I found a site that sells some precooked and canned bacon but they only sell by the case. mredepot.com is the site. hope that helps.

Jerald Lupinek
Wasco, California

Thanks for the information; I passed it on to BHM a couple of weeks ago, but some readers may have missed it and will appreciate your tip. Thanks! — Jackie

Gardening in the desert

I just recently subscribed to BHM and love it. I have been reading off the website for months. My question is this: We live smack dab in the middle of the Mojave Desert. I would love to have a small garden but have had a hard time growing things. When your summers start in May at 90 degrees and last all the way till October with plenty of days that are 113 or higher causing some of your tomatoes to actually cook on the vine it gets frustrating. What do you do? Thankfully we will be moving to middle Tennessee within the next two years. But in the mean time, any suggestions?

Johanna Labiosa
Ridgecrest, California

Your best bet is to plant where there is shade, at least part of the afternoon. For instance, try on the north side of your house or another outbuilding. If this is not possible, build a rustic shade arbor (4 posts and cross poles on top) over the plants. You want some sun, but shade, too to moderate the sun’s rays. Drip irrigation helps ensure that the roots stay cooler and the plant gets enough water without wet leaves to “cook” the plant. Work in as much organic material under your plants as you can, before you plant, then pile a thick mulch over your drip lines and all around your plants. This also helps moderate the temperature on the roots, keep moisture from evaporating and cuts down your weed problems. — Jackie

Canning summer squash

My husband and I are new subscribers to Backwoods Home Magazine. We’re learning a lot from the magazine and your articles. This summer we have an abundance of yellow squash. We like to cook it in stir frys and smother it with onions and butter. Is there any way of storing or preserving this vegetable that we love so much? I’ve heard that yellow squash should not be canned. Is this true? I would greatly appreciate your input.

Pam Dietz
Eunice, Louisiana

Summer squash CAN be home canned, but you probably wouldn’t like the product; I don’t. My friend, Jeri, slices summer squash onto a cookie sheet and quick freezes it in her freezer. Then she pours it into freezer bags to use in her stir frys. She said it works well this way. Maybe you’d like to try that. — Jackie

Hulling buckwheat

In a previous issue you answered a question about hulling buckwheat. Unfortunately, that issue 105 is not in the archives and I cannot find mine. Could you please answer the question of is there a way to hull buckwheat on a small scale? All of the machinery I can find on line is for large commercial hulling.

J. Michael Ledbetter
Jamestown, Tennessee

Sorry, but you can’t hull buckwheat effectively at home. I just grind mine, hull and all when I add it to multi-grain bread. This wouldn’t probably work for buckwheat pancakes, etc. as there’s a lot of fiber. — Jackie

Floating tomatoes

HELP! I just canned 4 quarts of home grown tomatoes but the water in the canner had a tomato smell to it like some of the tomato came out during processing. I processed at 6 lbs for 40 minutes. All the seals were good but all the tomato is at the top of the jar and the liquid is at the bottom. I’m going to eat these even if it kills me (I hope not). Boy that was alot of work if it all goes bad, but I really want to learn this art.

Stephen Joseph
Denison, Texas

You don’t have as much of a problem as you think. It’s common for some tomato juice to blow out of the jars during canning, especially during pressure canning. As long as the seals are fine, you’re good to go. If you hot pack your tomatoes, they won’t float to the top like yours did. This happens when you put cold tomatoes in the jars, then either squash them to make juice to cover or pour boiling water over them. If you first heat the tomatoes and juice to boiling, ladle them into the jars and process, they won’t float. Floating tomatoes are perfectly fine, just not beautiful. Enjoy. — Jackie

Canning bacon grease

My son thinks bacon is it’s own “food group,” and we always have tons of bacon grease around. I am trying desperately to keep from freezing anything that isn’t vital, as our freezers are getting very old and we are VERY rural, and prone to power outages in the winter. We have a generator, but at the cost of propane, I hate to use it to run a bunch of freezers. So, can you pressure bacon grease? If so, for how long?

Patricia Crowder
Holyoke, Colorado

I honestly have never tried to can bacon grease. But if I did, I’d pour melted grease into pint or half pint jars and process them at 10 pounds for 75 minutes in a pressure canner (bacon grease is from meat). I’ve canned butter and it canned up fine, even though it was greasy, so maybe bacon grease would too. Let me know. — Jackie