Preserving the Garden Harvest

Even with my life being as crazy as it is, I try to make time every summer to do some sort of canning or freezing. Mostly because I get a little too excited in the spring and plant way more vegetables than I should. But, because I also grew up on a farm where growing a garden & helping mom preserve the harvest was my summer job...lets just say it's in my blood. I can't imagine having to eat canned green beans or corn from the store! I would say I definitely appreciate canning & freezing more so now than when I was a kid.

Last summer was really great for fruit & vegetable production.  I ended up trying some new things that I've never done on my own before including harvesting grapes from my grandma's very old grape vines & making grape jelly. I was surprised at how simple making grape jelly was!  Once I made the grape juice I just followed the directions inside the box of Sure-Jell.  It's the best grape jelly I've ever had!!

Making the juice was pretty simple. Pick the grapes, remove them from the stem, wash, cook until you have juice. I strained the juice through cheese cloth. Since I did this after work, I stored the juice in plastic containers & made the jelly on my day off.

I also gave refrigerator dill pickles a try last summer. My parents had an over abundance of pickles so I went to work & made several batches of garlic dill pickles. You can get the recipe I used HERE. This is a simple way of preserving pickles, even a beginner can do it. It also turned a problem into a solution for me when I realized last spring that the 1 dill plant I planted the summer before reseeded EVERYWHERE!! I ended up making so many batches of pickles that I had to buy more dill at the grocery store. I never thought that would happen! I lost count of how many jars of pickles I made, but lets just say my family, friends, & coworkers all got to sample the pickles.

All the hard work of canning & preserving in the summer & fall has paid off during this long snowy Indiana winter.  My family is enjoying a winter of home grown flavors while we dream of next summer. 

Dana