Canning food WITHOUT BPA

Last summer I meant to write about this but then I got caught up in all the hoopla from Hurricane Irene, the rush to get even more canning done, the busy schedule at work and home and all and well. I just never got to it.
I'm sure many have heard about BPA which is short for Bisphenol A.
Wikipedia has this to say on it.
"BPA is controversial because it exerts weak, but detectable, hormone-like properties, raising concerns about its presence in consumer products and foods contained in such products. Starting in 2008, several governments questioned its safety, prompting some retailers to withdraw polycarbonate products. A 2010 report from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised further concerns regarding exposure of fetuses, infants, and young children.In September 2010, Canada became the first country to declare BPA a toxic substance. In the European Union and Canada, BPA use is banned in baby bottles."

Over the years my husband and I both have grown suspicious over ANYthing that the FDA says "might have a slight risk if exposed".  We have tended to try to avoid anything that the FDA says is low risk or safe in low doses.   So imagine my shock and surprise to find out the lids that I was using to can my green beans, my tomatoes and my pickles have BPA in the lining underneath them.   The lids that my Mom used and now I use actually contain BPA. 
When I first discovered it I was frustrated and pretty angry.  Mostly because what am I going to do?  I still want to preserve my tomatoes and bell peppers, right?  And there are NO lids that do NOT contain BPA, right?
Wrong.

Through word of mouth I came across Tattler lids.  Now these ones are a bit different.  They are made out of food grade plastic and the best thing, they are reusable!  I cannot tell you how many times over the past 2+ years that I have ran out of tops, I either send my wonderful husband or we all pile in the car to go to Walmart or the other local grocery store and they are ALL out of lids! Especially during the summer months!
Also another nice thing.  You can use the Ball/Kerr canning screw tops with these. 
So, with that all in mind I purchased one box of regular mouth lids and rubber rings for $27.95. 
The reason I didn't purchase more was simply because I wanted to try them out first.  Not only did I want to see how they worked with my jars but also I wanted to see how the seal would hold up during the winter.  I mean, after all, that's great that they can be reused, and that's wonderful that they are BPA free but if they don't seal the jar effectively then what good are they?

So, I ended up using them on some apple pie preserves, some white chocolate raspberry, and some peaches in a simple syrup.  End result?
Almost every single one did well.  Now I'm saying this in March and the last time we canned was about mid to late September so that means those jars that I used the lids on have been sitting in our pantry for approximately six months. 
The only item that did not seal and grew mold was one of the apple pie preserves.  I think this one might have been because we did not clean the top of the jar well enough at the time of canning but it's hard to say for certain. 
This year we'll be able to further see as I'll be ordering another batch of lids from Tattler.  Now, there only two negatives I can see out of using these lids.  For one, my husband and I have decided about two years ago to give away salsas, jellies, jams, pickles and what not as Christmas gifts.  This idea has REALLY saved money as previously we were giving out either gift cards or, when we lived in Alaska, fresh sausage and seafood packages from Alaska Sausage & Seafood.  When we give these wonderful, homemade, gourmet canned products out we lose the reusable lids.  I've told my parents to please, PLEASE send back the tattler lids as they are reusable but I have yet to see them back.  As for my husbands family I intend on telling them the same soon here as well.  After all, I've heard our white chocolate raspberry jam is a complete success and is very popular among our young neices so if they want any more then they have to send me the lids and jars back. 
Second, they do cost a bit more than the average Ball or Kerr Lids. Amazon has Ball Regular mouth lids with rims priced at $4.39 with free shipping for Prime members or just the lids for $5.42  
Now of course, getting the average Ball or Kerr lids means that I have purchase new ones of these every year.  I guess for one who doesn't massively can or preserve during the summer months then maybe this would be okay but for those of us who do put up a lot more food, well I can see the Tattler lids being worth it in the end.

Starting up again after the mild winter

First let me say, I'm so relieved that I didn't post more about our DIY greenhouse.  It survived until about mid January when we had a snow/ice storm that caved in the top somewhat.  The windstorm we had in February just finished the job on it.
We did get a few fresh onions, some fresh greens, our leeks are just about ready to be pulled and made into soup or what not but we didn't get as much as we were hoping to get.
I think a bit more of a significant investment will be needed.  As it stands it looks like this might be the last year we put a lot of effort into our garden because we might be moving to another house here on the same military post.  After that move we'll only have another year and a few months before my husband will be retiring, gratefully, after 20 years in the service.
At that point we move North to the Future.  To any that don't know what that refers to, that's Alaska.  We'll  be moving most likely to Fairbanks as that's where we own a home at which point we'll first settle in with our new CIVILIAN lives, and then we'll be gearing up to our dream.  Owning and running our first Organic CSA in Fairbanks.
We've learned a lot here in Maryland but in Alaska, well gardening there has it's own massive challenges and rewards.
But I'm getting sidetracked here.    Last week we started by first emptying the worm bin of any liquid that had been saved on the bottom (pretty much worm pee/liquefied worm poop) and emptied it into all of our beds.

 My son helped a bit in with this as he was thoroughly excited to be pouring "pee pee" on all the plants.   We've also added blackberry bushes here.  Honestly, we've gotten tired of fighting the soil out front here.  We've spent so much time raising the fertility of the soil out back that we really didn't want to invest massively in more compost, fertilizer, and plants when we (at the time) thought we have just two years in this place.
Blackberry plants are notorious for their ability to grow and produce in the worst conditions so we decided we would spend the $5 per plant and put two of them in this area.  Later I plan to plant nasturtiums around this area as I learned my lesson with the planters on top of the fence out back.  Out back they dry out way too fast and what the sun doesn't do the squirrels finish.  Last year the dang squirrels kept dumping all my containers out.  Very frustrating.

In this bed we decided to plant raspberry bushes.  Again I don't know how well they'll do but I simply got tired of fighting out here and since we have such a short time now, well I guess I can say I have short timers attitude.  Oddly enough our cabbages that we planted last year are suddenly recovering and actually are starting to grow.  

Yet another surprise.  The parsley and Yarrow.  They've both hung in there and are actually starting to look as if they might be getting stronger.  Since this picture my husband has tilled up this area and as of today we planted Parisienne carrots, cherry belle radishes, pak choi, fennel and Chinese cabbage.  Oh and we added generous amounts of well rotted manure, compost from the worm bin, and lots of worm tea.  I'll show another picture next week to give a better update and also to see if anything has come up yet.

 This area back here looks a mess.  We've had straw, shredded paper grocery bags, and dead leaves all over these beds.  Nice thing is all that was slowly rotting into the raised beds.  One other task we had last week was to shovel out all the old mulch in between the beds and throw it into the beds themselves.  This stuff had rotted down to almost nothing so it has made the soil ultra rich.

 This is what remains after our makeshift greenhouse came down.  We've got Red Russian Kale, some sort of green that hubby and I cannot for the life of us, figure out what it is along with purple kohlrabi, leeks, onions, and mesclun.  Without that greenhouse a good portion of this would've never made it through the winter so I'm grateful that at least we had it for a bit.

GARLIC!!!  30 PLANTS (hubby later told me he counted just to see how much we actually have)  I cannot wait till late May early June when we'll get garlic scapes!  Just a FYI, if you want/use garlic scapes then you have to purchase the roughneck garlic.  Not the softer variety.  In my book, roughneck is better simply because I get two harvests out of the same plant.  Nice.

Here we have emptied the rows between raised beds of all the rotted down mulch, then we added a layer of newspaper and then piled new fresh mulch on each row. 

A few other surprises. Our worms actually survived the winter in our makeshift greenhouse!  Wow!  I mean really, I didn't expect that!  So this Spring we are starting with about 500+ red wigglers and loads and loads of eggs that we went through yesterday.  I should contact Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs to see if he'd like this one.  Very slimy job, going through composted remains and looking for worms and eggs.  We got half our container done.  Next weekend we'll try going through the rest.
Another surprise, our potted Lavender, mint, lemon balm are all coming back.  Guess this winter wasn't hard enough to kill them.  Nice.  I won't have to buy any more this spring!




Well, it's time for me to run.  Tonight we're actually having one of our blue hubbardtwo meals.  Tonights cheese fondue and Wednesdays Hubbard squash casserole.
Hubbard Squash Casserole

2 lbs. Hubbard squash, peeled and diced
1/2 cup soaked and cooked brown rice
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
4 tablespoons bulghur flour
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
5 tbsp fresh thyme, finely chopped
salt and pepper
4 oz. fresh bread crumbs
coconut oil

Toss all the ingredients except the bread crumbs and oil until the squash is well coated. Put in a well-oiled casserole dish and cover with breadcrumbs. Drizzle with oil and bake at 325 degrees until deep caramel brown, about 30 minutes.

We've got one more squash to use which might be used in a soup. Not certain yet. As it stands we've got lots to use up before things really start to produce again. Tomatoes, beets, pickles, jams and jellies, chutney, etc etc. Tomorrow we're using up our dried corn, potatoes, carrots, some bell pepper and a bit of a ham hock in our crockpot to make corn chowder.
That with a nice fresh salad, some cornbread that I made last night should make a nice meal. Oh and the leftover strawberry rhubarb pie that I made last year should be a nice touch as well.

Preparing for Autumn....The Fall Garden

Yes, we are preparing for Autumn. Even though to us these temperatures make us hardly wince.  To Sourdoughs from Alaska, 60 degree temperatures mean either late spring, early summer or early Autumn.  Still we try to follow the calendar for this area as it seems so do our plants.  I guess they know better than us that it's time to quit, no matter how hot it still feels to us.

Our tomatoes have almost completely thrown in the towel.  They know they're done.  They're just begging to be taken away.  Still though, we've left them to allow those few green tomatoes to ripen naturally.  Later those will turn into our Ketchup for this year along with others we've picked and frozen.  Within the next two weeks Fava Beans and Rye will be planted in our tomato bed and our eggplant and bell pepper bed.  This will help with the nitrogen levels and of course add more organic material back into the soil.

On the other hand our winter garden is just getting going again.  

 We've got Swiss chard going again which is BARELY visible in this photo.  For some reason, I have found starting swiss chard from seed is super difficult.  The seeds germinate and sprouts start to form but the plants seem to not want to grow higher than an inch.  The brussell sprouts are (jumping up and down here excitedly) just starting to produce their first sprouts, the salsify is sprouting and growing slowing, the cabbage from earlier this summer is almost ready to be picked and best of all, our salad greens bed is doing well. Very little signs of slugs or snails thanks to the sluggo we purchased and the crushed up egg shells we've been saving. 
As you can see we have fresh straw on the right side of the picture.  That'll be used in all the other beds as well as these two.  Nice thing about almost any sort of compostable material breaking down.  It all generates heat.  We'll need that come winter to help keep our kale, brussel sprouts, salad greens and onions going.


Unfortunately our Marina di Chioggia is NOT going to produce anything this year.  Oh well, we'll try it again next year!



We decided to plant our garlic in the Okra beds. First and foremost, we were seriously tired of the okra.  Well no, I was mostly tired of it.  Okra is not an absolute favorite veggie of mine so by August I was getting pretty tired of blanching it and drying it. We got almost a quart of dried okra now, ready for cooking in the winter months.  

We purchased two varieties of Garlic this year from Filaree Garlic Farm in Washington State.  This year we're trying Chesnok Red and Persian Star, both of which are purple stripe and hardnecks.  These are best for northern growers as they're hardier.  Plus hardneck garlic varieties provide the much loved garlic scapes in late spring.  Softneck garlic varieties do not.  Our Chesnok Red is originally from Shvelisi, Republic of Georgia and the Persian Star garlic is originally from Samarkand, Uzbekistan.   We pretty much followed the directions of several, and I mean SEVERAL websites when planting. Make sure soil is fully tiled up and loose, well composted, lots of nutrients, yada yada yada.  

Then just simply plant the garlic flat side down, pointy side up.  Always in mid September to Early October. Cover with straw and leave them be.  Well that's what we did.  Now here's to hoping we see Garlic scapes in early June!

Growing Shitake & Oyster mushrooms

It's been about a month since we received our packages of shitake and oyster mushrooms.  So far the oyster mushrooms have been producing about a half a pound every other week.  Sadly, the shitake has produced ....nada. That's right. Zip. Zero. NOTHING.
Oddly enough in the past I have found Shitakes to be the EASIEST to grow but once again I am learning that now that I've moved to a different locale, I have to learn new ways to grow plants that I was once an expert at.
In the beginning, when we first received our package I think our mistake was not to shock the shitake block in the fridge and then submerge in water.  We just set them up hurriedly and told them verbally "Okay, time to grow guys" Ha ha. Yeah, like that has ever worked for ANY plant!
Since then we shocked our shitake block once, submerged once and still NADA.
Okay. Back to square one.
Tomorrow we will be doing a repeat of everything we have already done and on top of that scouring our guide to growing Shitakes.  We really miss nice fresh shitakes!  It would be great to have some fresh ones in our stir fries.
Today I purchased some Tempeh (for those who do not know what this is clink on this link) at Wegmans and I could only imagine how some onion, shitake mushrooms, ginger, and maybe some ichiban eggplants would taste over rice.  (Oh and by the way, later on this winter I will practice making tempeh!)

So while our Shitakes progress has really been horribly our Oyster mushrooms have really been producing well.  I didn't take a photo this week but two weeks ago we got a nice sized cluster that we used in stir fry.

This week we used our cluster in a wonderfully, elegant sounding dish.  Chicken Breasts with Oyster Mushrooms in Champagne.  We served the chicken breasts on top of a nice hearty risotto, along with some Parmesan broccoli.

If you're interested, here's the recipe

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
salt & pepper
flour
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp olive oil
1 lb oyster mushrooms, sliced
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup champagne
Parsley


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Pound the chicken breasts between 2 pieces of waxed paper until slightly flattened.  Salt and pepper the chicken breasts.  Roll them in the flour.
Heat the butter and oil in a large pan or skillet and saute chicken over low heat for about 5 minutes until browned on both sides.  Add the chopped mushrooms and cover your pan for about 10 to 15 minutes to let the mushrooms sweat a bit.  Now remove the the chicken and mushrooms to a covered casserole dish.
In the meanwhile, pour cream into pan and simmer for about 5 minutes.  Add champagne to the cream, mix thoroughly.  Pour the champagne cream sauce over the chicken and mushrooms in the casserole dish and place  back in the oven for another 30 minutes.  Use parsley as a garnish.

Talk about yummy, creamy and filling!  We loved this on Friday night.  Hubby was in heaven with this.  He had the absolutely brilliant idea to pair this with some risotto that we made with a bit of white wine, homemade vegetable broth, and cream which went beautifully with the chicken.  The fresh broccoli from Brad's Produce with melted Parmesan just made it all even better!
What a yummy meal!

Battle of the pests-Flea Beetles

This is my second year growing eggplant and oddly enough I did not have issues with flea beetles last year.  I don't know why they suddenly decided that THIS year they will come to my yard to munch on my eggplants and tomatilloes.  One day I walked out and just suddenly noticed all these tiny holes in my leaves of my eggplant.  Upon closer inspection I found the tiny beetles sitting all over the leaves, munching away. 
Now I do know after a bit of research that from now on I will probably always have them in this garden, thats even with tilling come Autumn. Unfortunately once the flea beetles figure out you have yummy plants in your garden the adults will hide in your soil during the winter and then emerge once again in the spring to feast on your young seedlings.  Especially if you have mulch or straw on your bed. 
There are very limited ways to get rid of these guys unfortunately, especially using organic means. 

Flea Beetles

• Diatomaceous earth: This is by far the most effective way to keep the flea beetle population down. I did notice a dramatic reduction in population numbers but they still managed to keep going after my eggplants.  The tomatilloes fare the worst.  One plant never got above seedling stage.  The other one got about four feet tall but the dang little buggers kept eating at it incessantly.  It's still alive but it never produced anything.  Mostly I think the trick to using Diatomaceous earth is you cannot let up.  You have to keep applying over and over.  It's not like BT with Cabbageworms where you can let up every so often on applications.  That's where we failed.  Each time we let up the population just boomed again.  

Oddly enough, that is ALL we used to battle those.  Like some of the other Battle of the pests episodes I won't remark a whole lot on ways to fight pests that I've never tried before.  I'll list them here but I just simply cannot give any feedback on it.  I have read that if you use floating row covers before the flea beetles invade it'll help.  But you have to get the covers on BEFORE the invasion.  In our case that wouldn't have worked.  I've also read about using nematodes.  I might try that next year.  Nematodes are microscopic worms that will feed on bacteria, fungi, and even other nematodes.  Sometimes these are good, like in the case of the flea beetles.  Sometimes they're not so good because some types will eat your roots of your tomato plants which will lead to your tomato not thriving as well as it should.  
I've also read about using sticky traps but I really hate those things.  They almost never seem to work on fruit flies, fungas gnats, and aphids.   

I guess next year I'll be getting more experience fighting these guys.

No honeybees for me

Well the housing office FINALLY responded back. I am not allowed to have honeybees because they are not "domesticated"

I must admit I'm a bit sad. I was kind of looking forward to trying my hand at beekeeping. Ever since I read the book Farm City by Novella Carpenter I really wanted to try this.

So obviously there will be no honeybees in my immediate future. Just wasps.

By the way, if you haven't read Farm City and you're interested in being self sustainable, enjoy food and you enjoy growing your own food then you'll enjoy this!

Oddly enough I first heard of Novella Carpenter on Youtube on the CHOW Obsessives channel. It's really inspiring what she has managed to accomplish! She also keeps a blog at http://ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com/

Check it out!

I'm so tempted to try something else. Maybe rabbits? Or Tilapia? I've heard of other people raising Tilapia but I've never really looked into it. I can't imagine the military housing office throwing a fit over fish. Unless they really smelled.
Amusingly enough my son and I were talking about the bees that we will not have last night. When I told him why we cannot he told me I should just not tell housing. I wish it was that simple.

Battle of the pests-Cabbageworms

This year was my very first year dealing with these little monsters!  I've never tried growing Kale, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts or Kohlrabi before.  These types of plants are VERY susceptible to attacks from Cabbageworms.  They will actually attack almost any type of brassica plant.
Amusingly enough, around mid summer I noticed these lovely little white butterflies with little black circles on their wings.  I even commented on how pretty they were as they flitted from plant to plant.  We had loads of them in the backyard!  How lovely! 
UHHHH YEAH right!  Once I discovered what those lovely butterflies were they didn't look so lovely. 

Those almost completely killed my brussel sprouts, they did kill two kohlrabi plants, and thoroughly munched on my Red Russian Kale!

CabbageWorms/CabbageLooper

• Bacillus Thuringiensis: This I have found is the most successful way to get rid of these pests.  It's quick and efficient.  Once I discovered what was going on with my plants I purchased some, sprinkled it on the affected plants and within three days the worms were gone.  Just apply once a week until you have noticed that the butterflies and worms have died off and you're good.  Now a days I re-apply when I notice either more cabbageworms or the Cabbage White butterflies. 
• Pick them off: Like hornworms, this is a pretty efficient way of taking care of these however since the plants in question are most pretty low to the ground it can really make your back sore as you're leaning over for quite some time moving leaves around.  We just pick them off and throw them either into the middle of the yard for any bird that wanders by or I give them to my son so he can squash it.  He says he doesn't like to squash these as much because "they're not as juicy".  Yes, my son is getting into that "ooh that's disgusting! How cool!" stage.  When you're on the hunt, the best thing to do is look for any chewed leaves.  Also they do tend to leave droppings on other leaves so that's another hint for you.  Make sure to also look under the leaves.  They hide out a lot under there! 

Big tip.  If you decide to grow any of the plants in the Brassica family purchase some BT ahead of time.  Otherwise you'll be in the same boat as me.