Canning tomatoes
I am canning tomatoes. Of course it seems time consuming. This year, for one batch I have pureed the entire tomato (minus the core) in the food processor and then proceeded to canning per instructions. What is the negative to this?
Leah
Louisville, Kentucky
I’ve tried this and found two things I didn’t particularly like. First off, the taste was a little different and we didn’t like it as well as the older way of doing tomatoes. And second, after storage, the appearance was a little different. So I went back to doing tomatoes the old way. A short cut that does give great results is using a tomato strainer. Mine is an older Victorio. You put in either whole smaller tomatoes or quartered larger ones after removing the stem. Turn the crank and out the side chute comes perfect tomato puree. Out the front come the seeds and skins. Faster than you can think about it! Done deal. Why not give it a try? The tomato strainers are available through many big box stores and there is a knock-off that seems to work fine available for less than $40. Money very well spent! — Jackie
Canning root vegetables
The first time I canned potatoes I followed directions about pre-boiling them. They got real soft and I did not like that. I started canning them raw. I am canning turnips now. Will they get soft if I pre-cook them? Even just a little bit? I would prefer to raw pack them. Will that be okay?
Nancy Foster
Dallas City, Illinois
I raw pack my potatoes, turnips, and rutabagas and have for more than 50 years, just adding salt and boiling water. They’re fine, although experts now tell us we have to pre-boil them. The raw packed veggies do make the canner take longer to heat up and exhaust, but not all that long. — Jackie
Raised beds and converting a hayfield
Two quick questions:
1. I’m planning to use raised beds for my vegetable garden due to the clay and rocky soil we have here. Since I don’t have a lot of equipment yet, how would you suggest the best way to prep the ground before constructing the beds? The area I’m hoping to use is about 50’x50′ at the edge of a current hay field, and underneath the hay is some of the rocky fill from digging the basement (which was nearly solid sandstone mixed with a little clay). The larger chunks of fill were hauled away, but the rest was just pushed around and it’s sloped in two directions — not to mention the rock chunks. I can find someone with the right equipment (bobcat? tractor? rototiller?) to help, just not sure what would be best approach.
2. If I want to switch another portion of the hayfield over to something like wheat, what are the best steps to take to do that? I’m reluctant to use any sort of grass killer, especially anything that affects the roots, is that the only way?
Sally
Missouri
If you are pretty sure you want the rough ground area for a garden, I’d try to get someone with a Bobcat or tractor with a loader in to flatten the area and remove the worst big stuff. That will give you a base for your beds. Then lay down landscape fabric to prevent weeds from popping up later in your beds. Then you can build your beds and fill them with good soil. Another option would be to choose another spot on the edge of your hay field and have it plowed, have a local farmer disc it. This would let you gradually improve that nasty clay-rocky soil until it gets to be nice black loam. We did this with our VERY rocky, gravelly soil in our own garden. We had BIG rocks, medium rocks and lots of little ones. No fertility at all. Now after several years of rotted manure and rotted mulch, our soil is black and nice. We did have to haul away a pickup load of rocks every spring after working up the garden with our TroyBilt tiller, but now there are few rocks to haul. Lots of work but now we have a big, nice, row-crop type garden which will grow more than raised beds.
For an answer to your second question, I’d have a local farmer plow and disc that too. Then you can control the grasses that emerge with a rototiller. Wheat and other small grains do wonders at keeping weeds and grass from coming back up once they are planted. — Jackie
Tami/TX
I really have to disagree with you. While raised beds are nice; we have several in our house garden, you really can’t raise as much food, per square foot, as in a bed/row-crop situation. I’ve done both and after fifty plus years, I’m still really happy with our tilled ground. To start with, it was nothing but rocks and gravel. Now, with the addition of tons of rotted manure, it’s friable and black. Take a look through past blogs to see what our “killed” soil is producing.
As for the water use, raised beds’ crops have hotter roots due to being above the ground so we find that we actually have to water more than our row crops. But it’s okay to disagree; gardeners have been dong that for generations. What works for one doesn’t work for another.
I do my potatoes just like Jackie says. I don’t even peel them. They’re wonderful.
I would go with the raised beds! If you have grass like Coastal or Johnson Grass tilling will spread it! Tilling also tears up the fine crumb of the soil. Build your raised beds and then fill them with organic matter (we have registered dairy goats and horses, so manure, leaves, hay and so forth). If the manure is fresh, you can raise great green crops (collards, chard etc). If the manure is green it will take a year or two for fruiting crops to produce. With raised beds, you can raise just as much if not MORE per acre with less water than row gardening (very important when one has a well producing only 1 gallon of water a minute or less). With raised beds you can practice square inch gardening. It also saves on backs! Tilling is a soil killer. Search the web.
Thank you for your answer on my turnips. I did them raw and they all sealed. But they turned brown. I am guessing it is maybe because they were more mature. Some were huge and kind of spongy in the middle.
Comments are closed.