First off, last Thursday, we had the Cook Area Garden Club out for a look-see at our homestead. Of course, I was a little nervous…most of these people had beautiful flower beds and weed-free smaller gardens. And, of course, we don’t! Food comes first around here, even though I love my flowers. And even in the garden and berry patch, we have plenty of weeds, but plenty of food, too!

 I waited to pick the ripe crops in the garden so the Club could see and taste different ones. The only problem with that is that when they had come out (all 50+ visitors!), I had to get busy and can.

Wow, did I…DO I! I first put up way-mature green beans — the pigs got quite a few real seedy ones. Then there were pepper rings, pickled peppers, dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, and spaghetti sauce. This afternoon I’ve got to pick more tomatoes for chile. (I think there are bushels of very ripe ones out there laughing at me!)

 Our Garden Club visit was great, though. Folks asked hundreds of very good questions and took notes. Some even took tomatoes and Hansen’s bush cherries home for seed. I introduced a lot of people to Backwoods Home Magazine who had never even heard of it before. All in all, it was fun and I hope to see some of these folks back out for a visit when I can spend more time with individuals. It did give Will and me a little glimpse of what our three-day seminars next year might be like…and it quickly made it evident that we must limit our seminars to 25-30 people…50 was too many to answer all the questions and spend individual time with everyone.

 Well, I’ve got to go for now; the canner is ready to empty so I can fill it up again! Whew. But it’s so satisfying to fill up the pantry with all that good food. — Jackie

Share or Bookmark

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 30th, 2011 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Food Preservation, Gardening, Self-sufficiency. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.