And When She Looked There, The Cupboard Was NOT Bare...

Is there anything more beautiful than rows of canning jars, filled with the bright goodness of the growing season? Bright red tomatoes, deep purple grape juice, brilliant green pickles, all lined up and waiting to be enjoyed. Canning is far from over for me this year. It has been nearly a month since I've blogged, and I blame canning and the start of school. Things are supposed to be returning to a "normal" school and work routine for me, yet the work of preserving the harvest still awaits me.

Two weeks ago, my parents brought me a cooler full of grapes from their prolific vines. I managed to squeeze--literally--six quarts of my own grape juice "concentrate" from my struggling vineyard this year. For this I am grateful, since I had given them up as lost for yet another year mid-summer. Gray mold or some other fungal disease has begun to infect the clusters, and each grape after promising green Concord grape turned dark, not a sweet purple but a rotten brown. But as the bad grapes dropped to the ground, I diligently picked them up and pruned off infected clusters in an attempt to forestall a total crop loss. And I had some success. The first flush of grapes were large-ish and juicy, and I just had to pick out the infected ones. As the summer and the drought wore on, the grapes became smaller and much less juicy, but I used what I could.

Mom's grapes were fat and fragrant and I was able to get eight quarts of juice from those she brought me. In fact, I revisited my childhood (as characterized in my last blog) this Labor Day, as Mom and Dad and I sat on my deck with trays full of washed grapes, picking out the good ones and tossing them into a large stockpot. My brother came out, took one look at us, and pulled up an obligatory seat to the party. The tedious job took about a half an hour; it would have taken me at least 4 times that alone. The juice tasted that much sweeter.

This year, in an attempt to keep the heat from boiling water for hours on end out of the kitchen, I invested in a "patio stove." Basically, it's a 16 x 16 inch steel frame with a burner, attached to a medium-sized propane tank. Apparently, people use it to cook enormous batches of gumbo and to fry turkeys--well, we've all heard how turkey-frying usually goes. The number of precautions and warning went on for two pages. Nonetheless, my husband helped me hook it up in the shade of a tree and I was able to boil water to scald the skins off the tomatoes and then set the 5 gallon pot to process the jars on to boil while I peeled. The water boiled in record time and I was cool (well cool-er) in my kitchen.

I'm canning more quarts than pints of tomatoes this year, and opened up two boxes of hand-me-down quart jars from a friend who owns a gift shops. She frequents yard sales and discount stores and going out of business sales in search of amazing bargains. I had a good time pulling out the jars she'd given me, all of varying ages. I know none of them are old to the point of being valuable, but they recall a time when you could find more than one style of canning jar at the local store: Kerr Self-Sealing Mason, Atlas Mason, Ball Mason and one simple "Mason" with an anchor design embossed on it. My mother still has some old blue canning jars around the house, including some with the glass lid that clamps down, which she displays but no longer uses. As a historian but not a collector, I appreciate objects like canning jars for their simplicity and their functionality, particularly when they change very little after over 100 years. I found a nice summary of the history of the canning jar at pickyourown.org.

The Delmarva Peninsula was once populated by canneries from one end to the other. The cannery provided seasonal work for farmers and laborers alike. Sixty years ago, my grandfather was manager of the cannery in Church Creek for several months out of the year, his one source of steady, guaranteed income. My mother recalls that in those early years, they canned in tin cans at home as well, and she sometimes helped to crimp on the lids. As a child, I vaguely remember visiting the cannery during its last years in operation. They were canning pork and beans for Campbell's; my only memory is that I thought it was funny that they dropped only one small piece of pork or bacon into the can before sealing it up. I don't remember hearing anything about how critical the canneries had been to the local economy, and how their decline spelled the end of an era when produce was both grown and processed on the Eastern Shore. That was thirty years ago. Perhaps the stories I've heard about the cannery, along with our family tradition of growing and canning food at home, are what lead me to continue home canning year after year.
(Workers at the Kent Packing Co. in Rock Hall)

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

(No) Time For Canning

When I was eight, I held a position of honor in my family, particularly in the late summer. My hands were just small enough to shove a tomato all the way through the top of a regular-mouth canning jar. "Can Jenifer come down and help me can tomatoes?" my grandmother would call up and ask. I felt honored by this special position for about one season. After that, whenever I was "invited" to come canning I would wryly remark, "Yeah, my hands are small, I know."

I spent untold summer hours as a child at our kitchen table, a cake pan full of tomatoes and rows of empty jars in front of me. My much older brother and Dad served peeling duty as well, while my mother blanched old pillowcases full of tomatoes to remove their skins. Mom would regularly dump our tomato skins in the compost bucket and return full pans of steaming-hot tomatoes to be peeled. My hands would wrinkle and bleach clean from the acidity, except for my fingernails which had slivers of reddish black gunk under them. So why is it I look back on those days with such fondness? It must have been the family togetherness, the silliness we all shared, especially when a juicy tomato would squirt someone else in the face or a tomato would pop out of its skin onto the floor. It was a difficult job, but working together made it go more quickly.

Last night, I canned this year's first batch of tomatoes...alone. The kids are certainly old enough to help, but I tend to can late at night, when boiling a pot of water for hours on end doesn't make my non-air conditioned house totally unbearable. In 2006, I had such a bumper crop that I didn't can any tomatoes the following year. Now, my shelf is nearly bare and I'm longing to fill it with rows of bright, beautiful tomatoes. I didn't finish until midnight, and I'm feeling drained today. My mother used to put in batch after batch until well into the early morning, setting the timer and waking up every 45 minutes to take out the hot jars and put new ones in. No doubt about it, canning is hard work and you have to keep your mind on the reward that come from opening a jar in winter and eating a tomato that tastes almost as good a fresh one in August.

There was a time not so long ago, when everyone was busy canning this time of year. As committed as I am to growing and putting up my own food, though, I find it difficult to find the time. It was nearly dark two nights ago, when my Amish neighbor stopped by and said hello. I was digging the last few potato plants up, and she was carrying a basket with 15 bags of corn for the freezer. She looked a bit tired too. "It's a busy time of year," she said, smiling sympathetically. Leaning on my garden fork, I nodded in agreement, then related what I had put up so far this year, and talked about my crop successes and failures. It felt good to share with her, like it always does with my mother, because I know she understands that the work brings great rewards. "Don't work too hard," she said in parting. "I won't," I fibbed.

Nothing can compare to the feeling you get when that first very cool, crisp autumn day comes and you know you have a full freezer and shelves full of canned goods. I imagine I might be cooking up some applesauce, and decide to pull out a bag of June strawberries to sweeten the sauce. Or I might thaw some peaches for a cobbler to go with the beef roast simmering in a pot with onion and carrots from the basement and a jar of tomatoes from the pantry. After dinner, we might bundle up to take a short hike down to the river or start a bonfire in the backyard, our bellies full.

On late summer days, if I've spent several hours on my feet at the kitchen counter, I fall into bed exhausted, with back and legs aching and a feeling of great satisfaction. I've always been known as a planner, someone who looks ahead, prepares or perhaps over-prepares. I wonder if it has something to do with my rural upbringing, and learning to live each day connected to the growing season. Or,is it just me? Either way, I know that all the time I've invested since I first placed that seed order in February is finally coming to fruition, and I'd better find the time to preserve it now so I have something to show for my labors.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

Summer is for Sharing

For me, one of the greatest joys of my garden successes is being able to share my surplus produce with visitors and friends. There's nothing I hate more than wasting a bountiful harvest, and nothing I love more than to take folks on a short walk around the garden and prove to them that I am accomplishing something even though I don't go off to a full-time job every day. Often, I receive something from their garden in return. My neighbor appeared at dusk one evening this week with two quarts of blackberries she had just picked (mine are still recovering from their late-winter move). Those berries, along with those my Mom gave me the week before, cooked up into a nice batch of blackberry jam.

Recently, onions have been at the top of my give-away list. I planted 75 plants each of Walla Walla (mild, sweet), Red Burgermaster (mild, red) and Copra (storage) and 25 Pikant shallot sets at the end of March. I was harvesting green onions in May and by mid-June, I had so many large onions that I began to worry how I would every use them all. Only one variety was for storage...what if they rotted before I could use them? A horrifying thought. So for the last several weeks, every visitor to my house goes home with at least one onion whether they like it or not, although the Mom of one of my son's friends is actually allergic to onions, so I had to let her off the hook. I have researched long-term storage of onions in baskets or bags on my basement steps, and am hopeful it will work. Can you image the smell emanating from a couple hundred onions decaying in your basement?

The problem with giving away vegetables--squash or tomatoes, for example--is that when you have plenty, so does everyone else. That's why it has been so much fun to share some of the summer crisp lettuce I grew for the first time this year. Whenever my Black-seeded Simpson lasted until June, I always felt grateful, but lettuce in late July is truly a miracle. Thanks to an article in Organic Gardening, I learned about this heat-tolerant variety just this year. I planted it in mid-May before the soil temperatures were too warm and by the time it was ready to begin harvesting in early June, the mesclun mix I planted three weeks earlier had bolted before I'd cut enough for three salads. My Nevada (green) and Magenta (red) summercrisp came from Johnny's Selected seeds.

I am enjoying the usual rush of cucumbers, and although I have given a few away we have had cucumbers almost every night for a couple of weeks. Earlier this week, I made a chilled cucumber soup. This was not the usual fresh puree I've made before, but a recipe which called for sauteing the cucumbers with onions in butter, then cooking them in broth for a half an hour. The mixture is then pureed and chilled. Creme fraiche was supposed to finish off the soup, but I added a cup of organic half and half that I've been trying to use up and then served it with a dollop of sour cream. Some people give me funny looks when I talk about chilled soup, but personally I crave it during the heat of the summer. See recipe below.

I derive great pleasure from making dishes for our weekend family "potluck" dinners at my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's cottage on the Bohemia River. We gather most Saturdays (and some Sundays too) for kayaking, sailing, swimming and--most importantly--eating. Not too long ago, our menu boasted grilled beef tenderloin, tuna, mahi mahi,lamb and pulled pork, all in one meal. I should probably mention that both my husband and my brother-in-law are former chefs, my sister-in-law works for a food broker and I am the self-appointed baker and produce-provider by virtue of being part of a long line of talented Eastern Shore gardeners and cooks.

Despite the extra work it takes to cook with home-grown fruits and vegetables, I have to admit it really is a selfish act. My husband's family always indulges me with compliments. "Did those ______ really come from your garden?" gives me even more pleasure than "That ______ tastes so good." So, this weekend, the family might expect some chilled cucumber soup, a blueberry buckle from the last of my berries, or some homemade fries from largest of my new potato crop, and most definitely some hand-battered onion rings...



Chilled Cucumber Soup

1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onions
4 cucumbers, peeled, halved, seeded, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices (about 5 cups)
1 8-ounce russet potato, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 1/2 cups low-salt chicken broth
3 large fresh dill sprigs plus 6 tablespoons minced fresh dill
1 teaspoon (or more) salt
1 cup half and half
Sour cream (for serving)

Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add cucumbers and potato; stir 1 minute. Add broth, dill sprigs, and 1 teaspoon salt. Increase heat and bring to simmer. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer until cucumbers and potato are tender, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes. Working in batches, puree soup in processor until smooth. Return to pot. Cool 15-30 minutes. Whisk in half and half and 4 tablespoons minced dill. Cover and chill until cold, about 4 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled.) Taste soup, adding more salt if desired. Ladle soup into 6 bowls. Place dollop of sour cream in center of each bowl; sprinkle with minced dill. (Modified from recipe on Epicurious.com)


© 2008 Jenifer Dolde

74 Quarts and Counting

It has been four weeks since I picked my first, juicy red strawberry of the season. As I write now, this year's glorious, whirlwind season has almost ended. Two nights ago, I struggled to pick a little over two quarts of smallish, but still tasty berries. Rain and an unusual 90-degree June heatwave have caused the berries to ripen and soften in quick succession, but we have still enjoyed every last one.

This strawberry season has been nothing short of miraculous. I planted 50 Earliglow plants in 2006, and as I mentioned before, could not bring myself to pinch off runners and pull up baby plants. One bed is a dense mat of plants, while the other still has plenty of stepping room. Two 8x8-foot beds, 128 square feet. Is that a lot? My neighbors told me they put in 150 plants this year. If their strawberries produce anywhere near as much as mine, they better plan on going into the roadside stand business. As of today, I have picked 74 quarts of strawberries!

By May 22nd, I realized I had a bumper crop on my hands, and began writing down all I had gathered up to that point. I began measuring my take in gallons, rather than quarts. I called my mother for something and left a message, "By the way, I picked 3 gallons of strawberries today." While I think she believed me, she was not suitably impressed until they came to visit on Memorial Day weekend. That night, the kids, my parents and I picked 5 gallons. My husband had purchased a 5.5 gallon galvanized tub the night before for icing down beverages and joked, "Maybe you'll fill this with strawberries." We did...the very next day. My parents exclaimed over the size of the berries and the cache they would find each time they lifted some leaves. "You certainly do have a green thumb," my Dad said to me. There is no higher praise to me.

As the weeks have passed, I find myself more and more alone in my picking duties. Both kids dutifully helped me for the first couple of weeks, but then I had to threaten them with no more eating to get some help. I was tired too. My hands remain stained a dark purple despite scrubbing with lemon juice and some heavy-duty hand cleaner. I've put up 32 half-pints of jam, frozen 12 quart-plus bags and even put several quarts on the dehydrator as I despaired of finding more freezer room. I have probably given away 20 or more quarts, and at least 5 jars of jam. When people gushed over my generosity I said, "Please, you're doing me a favor." I've been so busy, I've only made two strawberry pies. That, my friends, is a real tragedy.

My mother put in her own raised beds a couple of years ago, but felt her crop was a disappointment this year, at least compared to mine. "We'll have to try doing what Jenifer did," Dad said as he bent over my patch, continuing to tirelessly pick a couple of weeks ago. I think he overstepped a little bit there, but Mom kept her temper. "We did! I'll have to try adding more compost," she said. I suspect a generous application of compost had something to do with it, but I also think that surplus crops are a gift from God. I couldn't hazard a guess of how many people have eaten my berries this year. While I enjoy telling people "this is what a real strawberry tastes like," the real blessing comes from being able to share a delicious, healthy treat with my friends and neighbors. Several people have suggested I sell my berries, and I suppose I could have made over $250 this year at the going price of $4 a quart. I hesitate to compete with my Amish neighbors though, and it just seems like a lot of trouble to sell them. I'll stick to hulling strawberries every night until midnight, and racking my brain for just who might want to take another quart off my hands.

© 2008 Jenifer Dolde