Saturday, July 18, 2009

A Number of Recent Purchases

1) I recently bought two books that I'm having a wonderful time with.

First, Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman. I cannot rave enough about this book. I can't put it down, either, choosing it over the novel-of-the-week for lunchtime reading. To try to put this in a nutshell, Coleman and his wife live in Maine and have been on the search for the best way to keep crops going through the winters. They have done very well with it, and in this revised edition they even added in a trip to France and drove through the country following the 44th Parallel (which is the same Parallel they live on in Maine) to see how the French do winter gardening. And they learned a lot. And they share it, and great stories and tips and tricks and information galore, in this wonderful book.

Second, Root Cellaring by the Bubels. Haven't really gotten into this one yet, but skimming it shows that it will be invaluable to me as well.

I've been trying to cut down my book purchases in recent years, getting only things I know I want to have handy and getting other books at the library. These were two I had to have handy.


2) I bought a few seeds for fall planting from Territorial Seeds. These include the adorable, small Dazzle romaine lettuce, the plant in the fall and let winter over Purple Sprouting broccoli, Flat of Egypt red beets (I haven't grown red beets before, only golden), and one I can't wait to meet in person: Filderkraut cabbage. Can you believe this cabbage??? I had to get it.

3) We started getting serious about this garden with the intent on preserving as much as we could for the rest of the year, and that included canning. I started canning last year, but only did boiling water canning which limited me to fruit and tomato products. In order to get serious and can our veggies, we needed a pressure canner.

This past weekend, I ordered a Presto 22Qt. pressure canner via Amazon. They'd dropped the price $10 between the time I left work on Friday and when I got home, so I bought it. I'm still a little nervous about using it, but there are good directions all over the place and I have guidance from a few people, so I'm sure I'll get the hang of it quickly.

2 comments:

YD, sometimes with ♥June and ♥Angel Samantha said...

That Filderkraut cabbage is very cool looking. It's called a different name in Johnny Seeds, I was going to get the seeds but didn't. Maybe next year.
Pressure cooker, I'm afraid to try it.

Jody M said...

I'm afraid to try it, too, but I'm going to anyway. Green beans and beets this year, maybe potatoes and carrots. I'll let you know how it goes.