Bells of the North Homestead

Temperatures have finally begun to cool and we sigh a breath of relief.  The growing season is almost done which means our canning and preserving will now drop down to only small amounts each week. I cannot tell you how grateful I am though, that while there was so much work to do, each and every day, we now have so much more in our larder.  But even more, I have learned so much more this year about canning and preserving that it shocks me to think back to even four years ago.  We have tried so many new things this year, so many new recipes.  I'm just so glad that I have posted these here so that in several years from now I can retry these again later.   Next year we will not be canning or preserving to the extent we did this year as next year we will be moving. Whether it is due to a military Permanent Change of station (PCS) or retirement.  My husbands time of 20 years of serving his country in the US Army is about up and it's time for us to begin the...

We are now in my sons favorite time of year. It's apple season here in North Eastern Maryland. This weekend we picked a total of 72.2 pounds of mixed varieties of apples from Lohr's Orchard which meant we were busy, and yet I cannot express the joy I felt as I pulled quart jar after quart jar of preserved APPLES and not tomatoes.  Honestly, I am rather sick of tomatoes.  Really.  As much as I love tomatoes I have hit my threshold for canning and preserving them.  I know by October I will not want to see another fresh tomato for probably, at least two to three months.  As of lately my days consist of going to my full time job during the day, then picking our son up from his before and after care for school, and then coming home to see what tomatoes need to be picked, what tomatoes have fallen down during the day, what tomatoes need to frozen (which by the way, includes starting some water to boil so I can peel them first), and then work on all the other...

This weekend I decided to bite the bullet and tear out our lovely, beautiful lone tomatillo plant.  If you remember right I posted earlier that I made the rookie mistake of only planting one tomatillo plant.  You know, the old saying, it takes two to tango? Well that applies here. Tomatillo plants are self infertile which means they need two plants to produce fruit.  Since I only planted one plant the tomatillo was going to do nothing else in my garden but draw bees (good thing), take up room (bad thing) and bring shade to my pepper plants (also bad thing).  So, it's gone.  In it's place I planted some Cumin seeds that I hope will come up soon.  Edward and I love cooking with Cumin so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  This will be a new spice for me to grow. I also have one other spice that I will be trying soon but a blog will be following shortly on that to cover that one. So onto the state of the garden.  First we had a...

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 gr...