I’ve never canned anything before, so I relied heavily on advice from a friend, but some of the items were not easily available, like the wide mouth Ball canning jars. The quart sized jars I got had the regular sized openings. This proved to be a problem, necessitating cutting the cucumbers into slices, spears, and chunks to pack them into the jars.

The adventure began at our local farmer’s market where I purchased 60 Kirby cucumbers, a nice, crisp pickling variety. The farmer’s market had no dill (Even though my plant had 25 flower heads on it, it had very few of the fern-like leaves, so I wanted extra dill.) The cukes cost about $20. Off to Wal Mart.

Wal-Mart, I was told, was the best place to find all of the pickling supplies. Not true. The problem was that none of their workers (we actually only found 2 workers on the sales floor) knew where the jars and accessories might be. After wandering around the super center store for what seemed like hours looking for canning supplies, we finally found them in the “home” department.

They were out of wide mouthed jars, so I got the regular jars. They had very few pickling or canning supplies. So much for the “super center.” Next time I’ll shop around to get the wide mouthed jars so I don’t have to cut up all the pickles. I also found the canning salt there (this is similar to kosher salt – it has no iodine or free flowing chemical agents in it) as well as a little kit for filling the jars and processing which included a gizmo that lifts the filled, hot jars out of the boiling water bath, another gizmo that has a magnet on one end for lifting the jar lids out of the hot water, a funnel that fit snugly into the non-wide mouth jars, and another plastic thing that I was probably supposed to use to measure 1″ from the top of the jars. I thought I had everything I needed.

When we got home, I ran a clear wash through my washing machine with a couple of cups of vinegar in it to help get all the fabric softener residue out of the machine.  Then I put in the pickles along with a few towels, set the washer on the delicate cycle for 4 minutes. It did a beautiful job of cleaning the cucumbers really well. The hardest part was getting 60 pickles out of the washer, untangling them from the towels, and only being able to grab 2 at a time. I thought my back would break.

I had read an article on Clemson University’s site that said you can eliminate the alum (which I forgot to buy anyway, and later found out contains aluminum, which is toxic) if you cut the blossom end off the pickles then soak them in ice water for 4 hours. Alum is mainly for crispness, and the trimming and ice soak are supposed to help keep the pickles crisp. I got out the cooler, put a double layer of trash bags in it, dumped in the trimmed pickles and ice water and let them soak while I sanitized the jars in the dishwasher.

This may have been a mistake because when I packed the cukes into the jar, they were quite cold. This lowered the temperature of the water bath, perhaps too much. Clemson’s site also said to keep the garlic from turning green, try to use water with no minerals in it like distilled or reverse osmosis water. I used RO water; the garlic turned bright green almost immediately. Bob said if green garlic bothers me, then I shouldn’t look at it. Good advice. So much for Clemson’s integrity, at least on this subject.

I got a friend to help me pack the jars. Into each jar went 2 heads of dill and 2 smashed cloves of peeled garlic. I also tucked a cayenne pepper into 2 of the jars. It was impossible to put whole pickles into the jars because of the small mouths, so we started with spears, then advanced to long thick slices for sandwiches and finished with chunks to fill in the gaps. We shoved as many pickles as we could into the jars. Then I made the brine.

I didn’t know how much brine to make so I started out with 3 quarts of vinegar, 6 quarts of water, and 2  1/4 cups of salt.  This proved to be more than enough for 12 quart sized jars. I brought the brine to a boil, then started pouring it into the jars. As each jar was filled, I put the lid and ring on.

When all 12 were filled, I brought the processing pot with about 4″ of water in it to a boil – this took forever; we have a really crummy stove. By the time the water bath got hot, the pickles were not. Oh well. I stuck them in the pot with the lid on and processed them for about 10 minutes. The water never did boil. I wondered if I was going to kill whoever ate these pickles because the water never boiled.

Then I figured that the brine had enough vinegar and salt in it to keep bacteria from growing; that they’d probably be ok. I hope so, anyway. (The next time I do this, I’ll have the processing water already hot while I’m filling the jars, and will only process 2 or 3 jars at a time.) Bob said the water should be boiling the entire time the jars are processing. Oh well.

After processing, my brother said to remove the rings, dry off the top, and use the Food Saver jar sucker to vacuum seal them. That was the most frustrating experience of all. The sucker wouldn’t shut off readily with the “stop” button, so I kept sucking juice up into the Food Saver.

Even though the liquid was a good inch below the top of the jar, I kept sucking liquid into the machine. When this happened, I’d disconnect the tube, blow out all the brine, wipe out the Food Saver and try again. Two of the jars never did seal; I don’t know why. Those 2 jars I put in the fridge and by morning they had sealed themselves (at least the little dimples were down).

I had a few remaining cukes that I’d already cut up, and had brine left over, so I combined the two, brought them to a boil and shut them off. When they were cool, I removed the cukes from the brine because they tasted too salty to me, and put them in the fridge. In the morning I added water and vinegar in a 2:1 ratio to them. We ate them for lunch and they were really great. So that’s how you can make instant pickles.

The remaining jars should be ready to eat in a few weeks. What an adventure! This was a LOT of work, but it was fun; I’ll probably do it again….some day.

Happy gardening!

Even though further research needs to be done to gain a better understanding of the benefits of organic food, there is still much valuable information to share with you.

Before we discuss the actual health benefits of eating whole food, lets take a look at the advantages it has over non-organic food.

It’s a fact that this food is highly nutritious and contains higher levels of vitamins and minerals. Vitamin C and minerals like magnesium, calcium and iron are just some of the nutrients organic food contains higher amounts of.

Whole foods also contain higher amounts of antioxidants, which help reduce the risk of developing cancers.

You may be surprised to know, but the vegetables we eat today are nowhere near as nutritious as they were 50 or even 15 years ago. Farmers tend to take shortcuts when growing food, and the fastest way is generally not the best way to do something. This trend is expected to continue, so if eating highly nutritious food is important to you, looking into organic foods is something worth considering.

If you were wondering why organic food hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm, it’s mainly due to the extra cost associated with organic growing. Demand is greater than supply and as a result, you can expect to pay about 20% extra for this kind of food..

Numerous studies have been conducted to find out the benefits whole foods can provide us humans. Many results are still fairly inconclusive however there have been many reported cases of benefits when animals are fed organic food.

The reason for the vagueness in health benefits is due to many reasons such as: incorrect method of testing and the lengthy time it takes to determine results of this nature. However several studies have shown benefits such as:

• Decline in colds and other conditions
• Improves dental health
• Improves flow of your overall system
• Greater chance of sprains and fractures
• Reduces chance of injury
• Better over health

As mentioned, the subject of organic food vs non organic food is very iffy and many researches believe that this food provides little to no health benefits.

Thinking about it logically, surely food that has been grown as it was intended to and that contains no added toxic chemicals has to be considerably healthier for us.

Whether the extra cost associated with organic food is worth the money is entirely up to the person. There is insufficient evidence to say something like “eating whole foods will reduce the likelihood of getting heart disease”.

I thought it was a great question. This was one I had struggled with trying to make ends meet on a teacher’s salary as a stay-at-home mom. What was the difference between conventional and organic? Is it enough of a difference to justify the extra expense? I wanted to do what was best for my family, but wasn’t sure what that was at the time.

A Brief History of Organic

Up until the middle part of the last century, all food was organic. Chemical agriculture was just really catching on then, which changed the way farming was managed in this country. Up until that time, careful management of the soil and smaller crops were the norm, along with crop rotation or growing certain plants together to support the growth of the others. It was also common for each family to have their own garden. When chemical fertilizers made their way onto the scene, farmers could grow much more food with less effort. They could kill the pests that would have devastated their crops in the past. It seemed like a great plan.

But with the addition of the fertilizers, pesticides, and less attention to the quality of the soil, the net result was food that was no longer as nutrient dense, and had the added disadvantage of toxic chemicals. Micronutrients that used to abound in the soil were no longer present, which resulted in food that didn’t taste as good. Ask anyone who is older than about 50 if produce tastes different than they remember it tasting when they were young. Most likely, the answer will be yes. Nutrients taste good. That apple with no taste has very little nutrition.

During the 1980’s, the word organic began popping up in health food stores, but there was no standard for what could be called organic and what couldn’t. During the 1990’s, the first standards for organic foods were set. In 2007, more legislation was passed to more clearly define what was acceptable for organically grown foods and what wasn’t. In the meantime, organic foods have become big business and many companies that were formally conventional have now started organic lines, like Dole. The advantage was that organic foods were now readily available at most grocery stores. As organic became more commercially available, prices started to go down, but the intention behind the movement shifted into making money, rather than doing what was ultimately best for people and the environment. Consumer confidence in the organic label dropped as incidents formally known to only affect conventional crops started happening with the organic crops.

As a side note, some farmers are now producing what is called biodynamic produce. These crops are considered even better than organic and special attention is paid to the soil for optimal health of the plants and high nutrient content. Like organic, it also must be free from synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Organic is better than conventional, but biodynamic is even better than organic.

Why is organic better than conventional?

Chemicals used to protect food from pests are harmful to young children. Young children’s bodies have difficulty removing the chemicals ingested through food and children tend to eat more produce per pound of body weight than adults. However, the “safety” criteria often sited is based upon adults, not children. By eating several of the most contaminated produce in a day, your children are exposed to an average of 15 pesticides per day. You can reduce that by around 90% by simply eating more of the least contaminated foods. Organic food, by definition, must be free of synthetic chemicals. More attention must be paid to the soil in order for organic foods to grow, so they also tend to be more nutrient dense.

My favorite story about organics is taken from a zoo. They were feeding the monkeys a mix of organic and conventional bananas. The zookeepers discovered that the monkeys always peeled the conventional bananas, but ate the organic bananas whole, peel and all, which is normal for them. Even the animals know the difference!

Why are pesticides so bad? Don’t they just wash off?

Pesticide ingestion has been found to contribute to the following health problems, according to numerous animal and human studies:

• Cancer
• Fertility problems
• Brain tumors
• Childhood leukemia
• Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
• Hormone or endocrine system problems
• Nervous system damage

Read that last one again: Nervous system damage. Most pesticides are designed to attack the nervous systems of pests! I couldn’t understand how anything that attacks the nervous system could ever be considered “safe” for anyone, let alone children.

Keep in mind that pesticides are not just on the outside of fruits and vegetables, as is commonly thought, but are taken up inside the produce through the soil. Even when you wash the outside or peel the skin off, though this will lower the pesticide exposure, it will not remove all pesticides. However, by removing the skin, you are also losing valuable nutrients found in the peels and outside layer of the fruit or vegetable.

Collect all the information you can to gain understanding of what and when things should be done.  Common sense goes a long ways, add that with your personal observations, and you have all you need to get a good start the best usage of your time to gain the most results.

Evaluate and make your plan.

Step back and look closely at how the landscape is performing, both functionally as well as aesthetically.  Ask these questions: What goals do I have?  Do I want a dual purpose garden? Will it provide mental respite as well as healthy crops?  What features lend themselves to a focal point (dominant feature) or pleasant walkway for planning around?  How do pole beans or upright sweet corn set the stage?  How do the oregano and mint textures (leaf and stem) harmonize with the colors, silhouettes and shapes of their companion plants?  What type of lighting and shadows from the sun at various stages of the day as well as the evening moon’s rays do you see to add to the excitement of the view?  These are just a few considerations that may bring greater enjoyment to that bell pepper’s flavor or the pie grandma made from your rhubarb, or mint in your glass of ice tea, or maybe a fruit salad with hand-picked blueberries and strawberries.

Mark, stake, label, or flag to indicate the exact locations of seeds, vining plants, watering and fertilizing sites are.  As your squash vines start sprawling over this will help you not get lost as to where the hose end went.

Planting your future food:

If you started your tomato plants indoors or purchased them, you will want to transplant them one inch or deeper (to the first set of leaves).  Put stakes or cages up now so you don’t have to hassle with it later and risking damage to your plant.

Sweet potatoes are good to plant this month in the Midwest.  Replace cold season plants with warm season varieties such as beans, egg-plant, and pepper.  Work up the space, add some organic matter then plant after last harvest of your cold season vegetables.  Keep proper spacing for sweet or pop corn to ensure proper cross –pollination and room for mature growth.

Care towards your good harvest

Shad from direct sunlight allows for a longer harvest time.  Cool season leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach and others will benefit from a shade cloth or fabric with the density of window screen over them.

After you cut and enjoy asparagus spears (not beyond stalks reaching pencil sized), allow the plant to grow and fern out (opening of leaves).  Thin out and remove plant seedlings of beans, anise, and peas from any situation to avoid overcrowding.  Select, if possible, the weakest plants to discard.   New growth, tie up on vines as they need to avoid breaking stems and damage.

Watering good yet do so responsibly:

Keep as much moisture off the plant leaves, therefore minimize overhead watering.  To continue watering from over head increases the chance of disease.  If you must water from overhead, do it as early in the morning as you can so the leaves may dry during the day.

Food for the food- Fertilizing

Grapes need a balance of (12-12-12 or similar) fertilizer.  One quarter cup around each vine installed earlier this year.  Apply fertilizer to older vies as the bulbs swell.  Use one cup for two-year-old vines.  One to One-one half cups for three-year-old vines and one to two cups of plant food for each year of growth on older vines.

Tomatoes need tomato fertilizer with an analysis 6-24-24 or similar product.

The first number is low so minimize adding nitrogen.  Nitrogen encourages foliage and minimized fruit formation.

For your apple trees you will need to fertilize the ones which have been in place one year or longer.  Administer one pound of 12-12-12 each year.

Pruning:

To save the energy of the rhubarb plant, cut off flower and seed stalks.  Flowers from any squash and any fruits at the time of installation pinch off (remove). The plant will spend its energy trying to develop and keep fruit growing but it needs time to acclimate and establish in the garden.

Disease:

Watch for asparagus beetles and striped and spotted cucumber beetles.  These pests chew and transmit diseases in specific plants.  Apple trees signs to watch for are codling moths; the caterpillars are leaf eaters.

Caterpillars start showing up on many crops this month, especially cabbages and broccoli.  Inspect leaves for chewing, remove or apply a safe chemical control directly on the caterpillar.  You could use Bacillus (Bt) biological spray per package directions.

Several insects that disrupt fruiting will visit your grapes; control them with insecticidal soap to lessen the impact.

Grape foliage with blackened or gray film on it will need to be thinned out so air movement can be increased through the plant.  Check the base of grapevines after a severe winter for unusual looking growth.  Cut vines to ground. Retrain the new growth onto the arbor or trellis.  If the leaves appear pale or stunted, the nutrient level may be unbalanced or inadequate.  Take a soil sample to your local garden center if you are unsure.

Blueberry bushes with a yellowing discoloration on the leaves are a sign of iron deficiency or unavailable nutrients.  Iron sulfate at the label rate of application can be used to begin the recovery process.  This may take a few seasons.

Helpful Hints

An insect identification guide with color pictures can greatly help identify unknown infestation problems.  You can purchase these at local garden centers or nurseries.

If you have a garden, knowing how to safely can your garden bounty is a great way to make your produce last as long as possible. When taking advantage of food sales during times of year when certain foods are fresh and plentiful, the best way to preserve them is by canning.

Benefits of Home Canning

Home canned foods can last many years; their shelf life is the same as the shelf life of commercially canned foods (in jars) – that is, almost indefinitely. Just as long of course as proper canning methods are strictly followed.

Home Canning Methods

There are 2 canning food preservation methods:

1. Water bath canning
2. Pressure canning

Water bath canning is used for high acid foods like fruits, rhubarb, and some varieties of tomatoes. There are low-acid varieties of tomatoes so be sure you know what you have before canning.

Pressure canning is used for low acid foods like vegetables, legumes, meats, poultry and seafood.

12 Safe Home Canning Tips

Follow these canning rules for safe home canned foods…

1. Use only 1 quart jars or smaller when home canning. Trying to process larger quantities of food is unsafe because home canning technology can’t guarantee that the food is sufficiently heated through for the required time. If the jar is too large, chances are, the food on the outside will overcook while those on the inside won’t get hot enough. This will provide botulism spores an ideal environment where they can survive and thrive. Botulism poisoning is extremely rare but if not treated immediately, can be fatal.
2. Don’t use recipes you’ve made up when canning or even recipes handed down to you by your grandparents or parents. These canning recipes may no longer be safe or up to current standards. Only use modern canning recipes that are based on USDA recommendations. Recipes from University Extension services, the Ball Blue Book and the USDA are tested and approved.
3. Raw packing is NOT safe for certain foods: all kinds of greens, beets, squash, okra, white potatoes, stewed tomatoes and tomato/okra combination.
4. After putting the jars in, start counting the processing time only after the water comes to a good rolling boil (if using a water-bath canner) or after steam has vented for 10 minutes (if using a pressure canner).
5. Water bath canning should be used only for high acid foods: fruits, rhubarb, and some varieties of tomatoes, jams/jellies, pickles and sauerkraut. Use a pressure canner for vegetables, meats, stews and other low acid foods.
6. Do not use French-type or antique canning jars. Use only modern, regular ones like Ball or Kerr jars as these are safer.
7. Always allow the correct amount of head-space between the food (and the liquid that covers it) and the jar lid.
8. Lids are for one-time use only (though the bands are reusable). Used jar lids are not reliable for proper sealing. Screw bands that are rusty, bent or damaged in any way should be discarded and replaced.
9. Make sure that the canning jars are in perfect condition. Every year, before you start to can, run your finger around the jar rims to check for nicks. Even the tiniest crack makes the jar unsuitable for safe canning because it won’t seal properly.
10. Follow the recipe’s recommended processing time strictly.
11. Use a jar lifter to individually lift each jar out of the canner. Don’t lift the rack with the jars inside. Keep each jar upright when lifting them out.
12. Any jar that doesn’t seal should be reprocessed or placed in the refrigerator and consumed in a week or so. When reprocessing a jar, replace the lid with a new one.

Follow the above tips and ensure your home canned foods are safe. You don’t want your stored food to endanger your health in a time of emergency.