2016 - The year of (more) foraging, pressure canning, reducing waste, expanding the garden, and getting help from our Amish neighbours

We seemed to advance by leaps and bounds this year - thanks in large part to our Amish neighbours. Mike was in California for 3 1/2 months looking after his mom, and I was here by myself with everything else. I suspect the garden and I would have been a total wreck if it hadn't been for Isaac and Martha.

Foraging

I looked this word up when I started this post, and it may in fact be the wrong word! It means to search far and wide for provisions. So yes and no. To me, foraging is looking beyond the garden and the grocery store for that which Mother Nature already provides. Here's what we discovered this year.

Maple syrup

Maple syrup

Isaac had assured us that, given we have maples on the property, we can make syrup, that any maple tree grown in this area will work. (I found out this summer that they are all in fact sugar maples. So much the better.) So we gave it a try, and the result was amazing! I'll do a post on how easy it is to do your own backyard sugaring.

Dandelion jelly and wine

 

Dandelion wine

Both are time-consuming, but well worth it - especially when it involves sitting on the warm, sun-drenched grass with a friend, chatting and filling a bowl with dandelion petals. The jelly tastes almost like a floral honey, and the wine after 2 months was delicious. We drank one bottle, gave one bottle to Mark, and saved the remaining 6 for Christmas, which is when it should be at its best.

I'll post the recipe for dandelion wine in the next while. The only thing I'd add is that, when you transfer the fermented wine into sterile bottles, be sure to strain it through a coffee filter or tea towel. You don't want the sediment from the bottom of the jug (the lees) in your wine!

Elderflower syrup

Elderflower syrup is a very big deal in Austria, where my dad was from. So when Mark came by this summer with a sprig to show me, I headed right out to pick the flowers. I found the syrup to be lovely, subtle and sweet, and delicious mixed with sparkling water. But according to Andreas (also Austrian), it was not quite right. It was missing a je ne sais quoi.

I think I figured out why: The recipe calls for citric acid, which helps preserve it, adds a tang, and also apparently inverts part of the sugar (The Uncarved Block). I didn't have any citric acid, so froze the syrup instead to preserve it. Curious now to see the difference when I add it this year!

I'll post the recipe in the next while.

Walnuts

Mark's black walnuts produced again this year, and he brought over a bag of them for us. Would I ask for them again? I'm not sure. Prepping them to dry is a lot of work, and I haven't tried any yet, so still don't know if they were worth it!

Puffball mushrooms

I had never seen a puffball mushroom until Mark brought one over late this summer in a large plastic bag. I don't think you can grow them, but if you're lucky enough to have them already on your property, and if the conditions that summer are right, you'll have puffballs. If you check Images on Google, you'll get a sense of the size of these. We didn't master cooking them this year, but I'd try it again next year. From everything I've read, they're quite wonderful if cut in fairly thick slices, brushed with oil, salted and peppered, and barbecued.

 Milkweed pods

 

Seriously! I scavenged around Chesley in search of milkweed, only to discover an enormous patch in the pasture in front of the barn. According to Wild Fermentation, the tiny pods can be fermented and are a lot like capers. Yum! But that's for next year. By the time I got to them, then were a bit bigger - although by no means mature - and we rinsed them off and sautéed them with butter, garlic, and salt. Delicious!

 

Pressure Canning

 

For those of you who are old hands at canning, it will come as no surprise to you that there are two kinds of canning: hot-water-bath canning for tomatoes, pickles, chutneys, jams and jellies, and other high-acid foods, and pressure canning for everything else (low-acid foods).

I suppose I could cover off the highlights in this post, but have decided instead to dedicate a post just to the joys of pressure canning - which I'm still doing several times a week. Stay tuned!

Reducing Waste

Fermented pickles and piccalilli

The first years were chaotic. We had no idea what to do with excess harvest - particularly zucchini and tomatoes - so there was a lot of waste. This year we did much, much better. The zucchini only produced as much as we could comfortably use (what a blessing!), but the tomatoes went gangbusters.

Of course, tomatoes don't all ripen at the same time, so if I only had a few, I would wash and core them and put them on cookie sheets in the freezer. Then, once they were frozen, I'd put them in freezer bags until I had enough to can.

And so on top of canning diced tomatoes and tomato sauce (our staples), we also dehydrated tomatoes and packed them in olive oil. At the end of the season, we had 2 bushel baskets of green tomatoes, and those were turned into piccalilli and fermented pickles, which we nicknamed champagne pickles because of their colour and fizz. The piccalilli is similar to green tomato chow-chow, my grandfather's favourite, and is almost as good as Auntie's chili sauce!

Expanding the Garden

And so our garden has gone now from 3,500 square feet to about 6,000 square feet, just like that. Presto! (Our entire property in Brampton was 3,000 square feet, and the only garden I'd ever had was a few herbs outside the dining room window. Just sayin'...)

Isaac had been eyeing a piece out back for a second garden for a while, and this year we agreed to go ahead. So he came over with the plough and got it ploughed and fertilized. It's a bit intimidating, but I think we're up for it!

Getting help from our Amish neighbours

Jacob on the cultivator

In late April, Jacob came over with the horses and cultivator and cultivated the garden. That's a sight to behold! It took Mike almost 2 days to cultivate the garden with a rototiller. Jacob cultivated it in about 20 minutes, when went home, pick up a load of horse manure, spread that over the garden, and scuffled. The whole thing took less than 2 hours. Progress ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Then in early June, Isaac and Martha started coming over once a week to help me tend the garden. Mike was in California at the time looking after his mom, and I was more than grateful for the help.

It used to take Mike and I several hours a day of weeding to keep it reasonable (not under control by any means, but reasonable). The whole garden took Isaac and Martha half an hour to whip into shape. Ridiculous how competent they are!

Isaac brought the horses and scuffler, and Martha brought her daughter and a couple of hoes. While Isaac scuffled between the rows and used a hand cultivator in hard-to-reach places, Martha and her daughter hoed between the plants. (Yes, of course I helped, but I'm not nearly as fast as they are - at least not yet!)

By the time Mike returned from California in mid-July, the garden looked better than it's ever looked before. Amazing what a little old-fashioned know-how can do!