canning green beans

We used the canner two nights in a row! We're on fire!

We harvested the beans this morning - some were overdue to be picked, which will affect the flavor, but not much we can do about that now. We mostly harvested kentucky wonders and a few cannellini lingots. The blue lake are not ready to be picked yet.

We got one jar of cannellini lingots, and we used a special jar for them because we want to be able to compare the taste after canning - seed catalogs do not consisently talk about the preserving profile of different varieties, so we have to do our own experiments.

The only other choices we made were: whether to cut the beans into one inch sections or leave them whole (after clipping off the ends), and whether to cook the beans before canning them. We got a late start so I chose the lazy option both times - we left them whole and we cold packed them.

Looking forward to eating them! This run with the canner went a little bit more smoothly. We're getting this stuff under our feet.

(7/21)

canning potatoes

We canned potatoes tonight. I gave about a half pound to one neighbor and set aside another two pounds to give to other neighbors, and we were worried we wouldn't be able to fill the 10 jars that our canner can hold. But we had more than enough! I will make a rough guess that each pint jar can hold about a half pound of potatoes, because I estimate we made it through 2/3 of the potatoes before we ran out of jars. The entire canning process takes a couple of hours, and we didn't want to do another round tonight. It takes longer than you might think, because we had to wait for water to boil at a few different points.

I soaked the potatoes in water for a minute or two before scrubbing them, to help loosen the dirt.

The methods are well-established and simple to follow, as long as you can handle precision. We have the directions that came with the canner and two books, and the instructions were basically the same. I definitely recommend reading the instructions thoroughly before you begin so that you are prepared for the next steps - for example, there are several points where you need to have boiling water ready. Next time I think I will make a step by step outline for ourselves that indicates when we need to put water on to boil, and how much. It's easier than going to the book every two minutes to double check and to look ahead to the next steps to make sure you're ready.

The only other thing I would do differently is get more heavy-duty potholders. When we poured boiling water on top of the canning jars in the canner, we both burned ourselves a little.


I've never eaten canned potatoes before, other than sweet potatoes, so I'm not sure how we will use all ten jars (plus we will probably can as many jars of the german butterballs). I'm getting excited for the winter!

bean update - time for canning!

I've been so focused on finding japanese beetles on my bean plants that I didn't notice that there are a TON of beans ready for harvest! Usually I really enjoy finding the baby vegetables and watching them grow until they are ready to be eaten, but this time I didn't even notice what was going on. Pictured above is a baby bean - I didn't get a good photo of the more mature beans.

I'm not exactly sure how many will be ready to be picked. Only one of my resources gives a tip for knowing when to harvest, and it says to pick them when they are still immature because they taste better - before the beans start to swell. That makes it seem like they should be flat. But every time I buy green beans at the farmers market or get them in my CSA, they are nice and round. It seems like that is what I would be looking for, so I'm just going to pick the ones that I would want to eat and can them.

I was not prepared to can this early - I need to wash the jars, buy rings (I got several canning jars off freecycle but they didn't have any type of lid), take stock of the other canning supplies I have, figure out exactly how this whole canning thing works, and then find a chunk of time to actually do the work!

potato harvest, part I

We harvested the rest of the cranberry red potatoes, leaving one plant to see if the potatoes get bigger in a week.

We pushed the flat fork that we use for compost down several inches away from the base of the plant, then lifted up. We erred on the side of too far away while we figured out just what the potatoes would like when harvested, which I recommend. The soil was really easy to work with, probably because we worked it so much before we planted potatoes.

Like many vegetables, the roots extended about as far as the leaves did.

we found 2 or 3 rotten potatoes, but there weren't any widespread problems

I weighed our harvest using our bathroom scale, and it said we got 10 lbs, but it's probably a little less because the bathroom scale is not that precise.I'm basically happy with that yield. There were several tiny potatoes (about the size of a dime) that weren't even worth collecting, which is why I left one plant to grow for another week. I wonder if we didn't jump the gun on the harvest or if there will always be small potatoes.

We planted one lb of seed potatoes, and according to the seeds company you can expect about 10 lbs of harvest for each lb. At 5.50/lb (plus shipping) for seed potatoes, these come out to about 50 cents/lb for edible potatoes. I think most vegetables are much more money-saving - we paid about $2 for a packet of spinach seed, used less than half, and got about 4 lbs worth. 25 cents for a pound of organic spinach is absolutely incredible!

cranberry red potato harvest 7/19

The main benefit that I can see now of growing your own potatoes is the variety you can get. Most of the farmers at our local market sell pretty standard potatoes. Growing your own, you get to choose your favoriate varieties and even try new ones. And it does save money if you only think about the seed - I think market potatoes usually cost 3 or 4 dollars per pound. But when you factor in the cost of materials, not to mention the labor, I doubt it saves money. Still, it's fun!

Now, since I made a critical error and bought early potatoes which do not store well, we have to decide what we will do with our bounty. I want to share them with our neighbors, who have been so extraordinarily kind, generous, and welcoming to us. My spouse wants to can them. We will probably do some of each.

tomato update

On June 30th, the romas and cherokee purples had blossoms, though the brandywine did not. Every single one of the tomato plants seems to be growing well - a nice surprise since there were several I didn't think would survive, but I planted anyway because I had the space. We were starting to get several little tomatoes on the two tomato plants i purchased, which were more mature than the ones I started from seed.

Two weeks later, every single plant has little tomatoes on it! Way more than I can count. And, I've already harvested one early tomato from one of the plants I purchased. It was DELICIOUS! There is nothing like the flavor of the first tomato of the season.


My only two concerns at this point are continuing to stake the plants up as they grow larger and heavier, and canning the tomatoes - I'm worried they will ripen at a pace that will have us continually canning a few quarts rather than doing a big session, as I would prefer to do. Oh, and we will be out of town for 10 days in August and I don't want them to ripen while we are gone!