Canning sausage

Can sausage be canned like ground beef? No one here likes sausage patties but do like sausage gravy and soup. Canned the same as ground beef?

Hail here shredded the corn leaves and put holes in the lettuce, cukes, and eggplant. Everything is recovering.

Thanks for all the great information and your books. Where do you find the time and energy to do it all? Ask Jackie is the first thing I read in the morning and when the new BHM arrives.

Franci
Ignacio, Colorado

Yes, you sure can home can sausage like ground beef. I do it every time we butcher a pig. The pre-cooked sausage is so handy. I make both sage and Italian. It’s said that you shouldn’t can sausage with sage because it gets bitter. I guess it could but I’ve never found it to do so. To be safe, you might want to go light on the sage and add more when you re-cook it to use if you want.

Sometimes I don’t have the time or energy! Hey, I’m human. I switch around a lot. For instance, I only make soap every so often and do a big batch. Or I’ll can tons of one thing and then only a little next time. It helps. So does having a REAL homesteading husband. Wow, does that ever help! Will just now mulched darned near our whole garden himself. Then he went down to work on the barn all day. I really appreciate him! — Jackie

Three sisters planting

My wife and I made our first attempt at a raised bed garden, and did a mixed plot based on the 3 sisters method of planting. The corn didn’t do well, the squash did alright, but the beans… They were decimated by the bean leaf beetle. I would rather not apply pesticides to the plot, but I seem to be unable to find natural means of managing this pest. Is there any means of controlling this pest without applying chemicals?

Mark Richardson
Boxborough, Massachusetts

Mark, just a note to let you know that the 3 sisters method of raising squash, beans, and corn in the same plot is really only successful in a larger garden. Native People used this method effectively but did not primarily harvest the corn as “green” corn (boiling or roasting ears), but let it dry on the stalk, along with the dry pole beans climbing up the corn stalks. Most folks today grow sweet corn and need to get into the patch to harvest it. Sweet corn really doesn’t usually do too well with being crowded with squash vines and pole beans and it’s tremendously hard to walk through a corn patch when the rampant squash vines ago everywhere. Flint and dent type corns typically have taller, heavier stalks to support the burden of climbing beans and twining squash vines. In New Mexico, I did grow a big patch using the 3 sisters method. It did great but I had squash hanging from corn stalks and even trees nearby, tons of beans on the corn stalks, and plenty of big corn ears ready to grind for cornmeal. BUT I sure couldn’t have walked among the corn rows to harvest green ears. It was like a jungle!

That said, about your bean beetles, try Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew, a natural Bonide product which contains spinosad, a bacteria lethal to bad bugs but harmless to good insects, butterflies, earthworms, and you and your family. Another possibility is using pyrethrins or rotenone powder or spray. All do a good job and will save your crop if it’s not too far gone. Be sure to gather dead vines and burn them so the insects don’t over-winter to make a huge problem for you next year. — Jackie

1 COMMENT

  1. And you can buy just plain Spinosad concentrate to dilute and spray. Whether or not it kills or controls a particular bug may depend on the life stage of the bug – read the label completely and know what you are dealing with. For bugs that pass through life stages quickly or reproduce quickly, multiple sprayings are probably going to be needed. I’m an organic gardener and so far can’t say enough positive about spinosad. The only caution is that it is toxic to bees if they are accidentally sprayed, but once the spray dries it seems not to be. The issue seems to be whether the bugs are walking on leaves or flowers still wet with the product, so if you use it on aphids you should remove all the ladybugs you can find before you spray. Once it dries they don’t seem to be affected, and only the leaf chewing bugs who ingest it will die. The only plant I’ve used it on that has been damaged is a Rocky Mountain Columbine with aphids. It did scorch the leaves.

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