I harvested about 15 pounds of organic carrots yesterday out of my kitchen garden. My kitchen garden is a large raised bed outside, right next to my — yes, you guessed it — kitchen! By Golly, Ned, you just won a free copy of my limited edition Guide To Parallel Universe Travel For Less.
Carrots store very well in the fridge, but I will slice and freeze about 9 pounds of these carrots for stews and soups and roasts this winter. I have carrots growing in my main garden in amongst my tomatoes and the end of this month I will sow my fall crop of carrots. My daughter will eat Mom’s fresh garden carrots raw but not “store ones”.
I harvested more calendula yesterday and hung the flowers to dry. We ate fresh green beans with our dinner. There is quite a measure of assurance for me to grow some of our own food. Not to mention that it tastes superior to anything you can buy in a grocery store.
My daughter and I then canned 10 jars of blueberry jam. This jam cost me 6$ in jars, $2.50 in Reduced Sugar Pectin, $4.50 in fresh blueberries and about .30 cents in sugar. For $13.30 we made $30 (at least) in jam. Next year, we will have the jars and hopefully, the blueberries in our berry patch will fruit better.
Canning jam with my 11 year old was a lot of fun. She pushed the pulse button on the food processor to chop (not puree) the blueberries, she measured precisely — remember canning is chemistry — she poured the sugar quickly into the blueberry jam in its rolling boil — and her most favorite, she ladled the ready jam into the funnel on the jar. She got very good at knowing how much to ladle in to get the right headspace. I did all the hot dangerous activities with the hot jars and boiling water. We have a lid lifter — a green plastic stick with a magnet on one end — and this fascinated her to no end. She also enjoyed filling out the pretty labels and wants to be the one who sticks the labels on the jars.
It is much cheaper to entertain children then we give them credit for. And they enjoy being productive and contributing to the family’s well-being. Canning teaches math, chemistry, language arts, domestic arts, fundamental business principles and how to be self-sufficient. And it is not as time consuming as you might think, we canned the blueberry jam in about one hour.
We have a family of 10, and we love to can together – It’s great bonding time! Just finished pears and moving on to corn…
I found this great t-shirt that says “Yes, we canned!” We may all need to get one : ) Check it out at:
http://www.cafepress.com/cannedlaughter