As if our own garden doesn't keep us busy enough, the local farm stands are offering wonderful, local produce that are too hard to pass up. It is officially peach season! I stopped at Ikenberry's to buy a bag of peaches to make a peach galette for dessert on Saturday. I ended up buying a larger amount so that I could make some jam too. As much as I hate weeding and laboring in the garden, I love canning and saving food.
In the late 1970's we were renting an apartment in the city of Albany, New York. Steve was in college and I was working in an office to support us. I longed to live in the country. We took drives and dreamed to one day make that come true. Back then, I subscribed to Mother Earth News. It peaked my interest about country life, especially putting food up by canning. I knew nothing about canning and quickly learned that it is not complicated. I started canning produce for my father from his garden. I remember making tons of pickled beets for him. I canned cranberries from the supermarket at Thanksgiving and gave them as gifts. We bought produce from farm stands and I canned that too. I would can anything I could get my hands on.
We also listened to Prairie Home Companion on the radio every weekend. I recall Garrison Keilor singing a song about canning that I will never forget. The thought of those stained glass colored jars all lined up on a shelf waiting to be opened on a cold winter's day to feed family around the table still fills my heart with joy.
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| Peaches and jalapeno peppers ready to simmer |
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| Sitting pretty until I take them to the basement |
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| Dried lavender buds stripped from their stems |
Another wonderful harvest from the garden is lavender. We have three lavender bushes around the edge the garden. I never picked the blooms this year so they all dried on the stalk. It was now time to cut all the stalks back. After that was done, we gathered them up and took them to the patio. It was a pleasant evening with a soft breeze cooling the air. Steve fixed us each a drink and we sat with a bowl between us and stripped all the buds off the stalks into the bowl. I have the bowl in the house now, where the humidity is lower and the buds can dry more. I stir it a few times a day to help the drying process along. The aroma of the lavender is released each time I stir it. The house smells wonderful! Usually I will make little sachets with the lavender but for now I can't think past the bowl.
Growing up on a small farm, my mom canned and froze everything to get us through the winter! I don't have space for a garden in my small yard (and if I did the deer would eat everything!!!). Farm stands in my area are few and far between and outrageously expensive, sad to say. Good for fresh produce but not for canning.
ReplyDeleteOh, I can just imagine how lovely that lavender smells!!!
My grandmother always had a cellar full of amazing, wonderful goods from their garden and the wild berries we picked. I let my lavender go by but need to cut them back I am going to try striping them now I have nothing to lose. These days and times it would be a comfort to have canned goods put by.
ReplyDeleteCathy